don't question the rules
by BirdPower
Summary: part 2 of my story "a beautiful heart and a bright mind", this time from Harry's point of view. Harry's a nutcase, but he tries his best after the war. Weasley fluff and Weasley drama. slow burn. Pairings: RWxHG, HPxGinny, RWxHP, unrequited twincest,GeorgexOMC, loads of canon pairs. warnings: slight violence, coarse language, Canon divergence: Hermione died, Fred is alive


Harry's survival at the house of the Dursley's was protected by two very simple rules.

§1 Questions are bad.  
a) Don't question what Aunt Petuina and Uncle Vernon do, think and are.  
b) Don't ask questions.

§2 Be as normal and inconspicuous as possible.

While both rules were not easy for him, since he was a very curious child, his Aunt and Uncle were positively crazy and he was a wizard, he tried to follow them as much as possible to keep himself from getting closet detention or "no food".  
They were much too protective of their own reputation to physically abuse him and risk to leave bruises that could be seen by the neighbours (well... except Dudley), but sometimes he wished they'd beat him instead of not giving him food.  
Well...no _real_ food.  
Aunt Petunia gave him unseasoned, watery porridge once a day.  
Harry hated porridge, but at least it kept his stomach full for a few ours.  
The two simple rules kept him out of trouble and after years of following them every day, they were basically a part of his personality.  
Be normal, only ask questions if really needed, keep yourself in the background and do how you're told, that was the credo of Harry Potter until he learned about the Wizard World.

Being the centre if a attention was uncomfortable and scary for him.  
Everyone knew his name and they kept staring at him, expecting things of him, talking to him.  
While Harry liked that the people looked at him as something better than a cockroach for a change, he still felt trapped. In danger.  
It scared him and he was happy to have Hagrid beside him, when he bought the things he needed for school.

The first time Harry felt save and accepted in a way that it made his mouth be stuck in a broad grin that hurt in his cheeks, was when he met a certain Weasley.  
Ron was a bit shy, like he didn't know how to interact with a child that's not part of his family.  
He was similar unsure about how interact with people outside house, people that grew up with different "rules".  
Years later Harry would find out that he was the first person of the same age, Ron ever talked to, that was not a family member.  
Ron was curious and asked question, but they all end with slightly nervous blinking and with the redhead turning his face towards the window and shyly observing him through the reflection in the glass.  
It was like every question ended with a relativisation, a quiet "you don't have to tell me if you don't want to".  
It's the first time Harry felt safe being the centre of attention.  
Felt safe asking and answering questions.  
Ron became his first real friend so naturally, that he can't even pinpoint when it started.  
It was a laws of physics...  
Newton's apple will fall down to earth and Ron Weasley was Harry Potter's friend.  
They didn't become friends, it was what they were, are, will be.

Ron was his guide in the Wizard World.  
He taught him the rules and Harry learned very fast, that while the definition of "normal" was different and he wouldn't end up being without food like in the Dursley's house, it was still benefiting him when he was not pulling too much attention on himself.  
However he also learned that he had friends and that Hermione and Ron wouldn't even think of leaving his side even if they had to face terrible consequences.

Having loyal friends that he could trust, someone that would explain him things even without him asking and someone to share his experiences with was greatest thing he ever had in his young life.  
How deep this loyalty went, he learned in his third year, but he only started to grasp the gravity of it in the summer that followed his third year.  
"If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too." had Ron said, trying to stand up on his broken leg.  
Ron was willing to _die_ , if it meant to protect him.  
It was somewhere in between these lines that he noticed that Ron and his loyalty was something he could not bear to lose.  
He squashed the thought of freckled skin and how Ron's eyes wrinkled slightly in this special kind of hidden smiles that no one except Harry seemed to see.  
Being normal means being safe.  
Losing his friends and the safety of Hogwarts was way more of a threat than "no food".

The fourth year was hard.  
Seeing Ron pulling away from him was hard.  
He was so jealous when he noticed that Ron spending more time with Seamus and Dean.  
He was embarrassed about how possessive he was and squashed the thoughts together with how much he missed Ron, how being with only Hermione just wasn't as fun as when Ron was with them.  
Harry still couldn't bring himself to make the first step though and with everyday feeling lonely and seeing Ron being perfectly fine without him, he got more bitter.  
Snapped towards his friend even when Ron stealthily tried to get closer to him again.  
He'd always thought Ron knew him the best. How could Ron of all people assume that he purposefully tried to get in the contest to be famous.  
He was so disappointed that Ron thought their friendship was worth so little to him that he didn't even know how to face him without shooting back.  
If Ron's trust in him was so small, was their friendship worth fighting for it?  
What felt solid and strong between them seemed so brittle.

When Ron finally did try to apologise however, Harry knew how stupid he'd been to think that he'd be able to go without Ron's friendship and support.  
He decided that day that he'd try anything in his power to keep Ron close to him.  
It was the first and the last time in a very long time that he allowed himself to think that Ron's lips looked way too kissable.  
It couldn't be, what wasn't allowed.  
Being _not normal_ was not even an option for Harry.  
He pushed it down so hard that he forgot about these thoughts.

Cho Chang was a person he deeply admired and it was easy to convince himself that he felt something like a crush for the Chinese girl.  
She was talented, intelligent and most importantly she was a great Quidditch player.  
And even if he sat on the ball beside Ron and Ron's shoulder touched his, strong and warm, looking ridiculously handsome in this ruddy old-fashioned cloak, it was easy for Harry to feel disappointed that she chose Cedric Diggory over him.  
Even feeling jealous came incredible easy to him.

With Cedric's death, the war was inevitable and with that there were more important things on Harry's mind than romance.  
Actually romance never had such a big influence on him anyway.  
Yes, he had a crush on Cho and then started to like Ginny, but it was surprisingly unimportant when it came to motivations to fight Voldemort, to be willing to trade his own life for the ones he loves.  
Hermione, Ron, Hagrid, all the members of the DA and the Order of Phoenix, the Weasleys, his home, Hogwarts...Ginny was one person, one reason among plenty to fight and protect what he loved.

Many of his friends didn't make it and sometimes he felt guilty for surviving.  
Hermione didn't make it.  
She died in the battle of Hogwarts, like many, many others.  
Ron, who'd just seen Fred narrowly escaping death by Percy reacting and pulling him out of the way of a wall bursting into pieces was heartbroken.  
They both were.  
How they managed to survive the first months without Hermione was still a miracle to Harry.  
He felt like he lost his ability to breath.

Ron and him had decided to not stay in Hogwarts, but they took their final exams since they wanted the possibility to chose whatever job they wanted with the N.E.W.T. Scores.  
That and Hermione would have killed them if she knew they didn't sit through the exams.  
The majority of time they spend sitting together in their dingy living room on their mouldy couch in their apartment in one of the suburbs of London, trying to regain a purpose for their life.  
Harry had fought so hard for the closest people in his universe, Ron and Hermione, to survive. That he simply didn't know what to do now that he failed to reach this goal.  
Hermione was gone,  
Ron was with him though.  
Helpless and broken and clinging to Harry as much as Harry leaned on his shoulder while they tried to find ground again.

One of these days that floated in the stillness of high summer, Harry came home to his friend being asleep on the couch.  
He'd stepped closer with an almost-smile planning to wake Ron, when he noticed that Ron's face was open and full of hurt.  
He seemed to have some kind of bad dream writhe and whimper is such a heart-wrenching that Harry felt like being thrown in a lake of icy water.  
He was able to take a lot but seeing his friend in so much pain was obviously the last but to push him towards an edge he didn't even knew that he avoided to cross it.

Harry never was the type that cried openly.  
He just learned so early that crying or showing distress wouldn't change anything about his fate, except potentially bringing the unwanted attention of his aunt to him.  
But now, with his friend deep asleep and croaking Hermione's name again and again, shivering, as if he could still not believe she was gone, Harry sunk on the floor before the couch leaned against the aching, trembling chest and big, soundless feverish tears streamed over his cheeks.

He couldn't remember how long he'd been like this until he fell passed out under the exhaustion to allow himself to mourn for his lost friend and for the last little piece of Ron's innocent, boyish carefreeness she'd taken with her.  
It was Ginny that woke him up with a soft tap on the shoulder that made him turn around and stun her in a reflex.  
Slightly confused he stared upwards to her still form. The features of her face, the mouth opened in surprise, were a bit blurry through his foggy glasses.  
He took them off and spelled them clean in a unconscious motion until he had processed for enough to undo the stun.

Luckily Ginny wasn't angry that he stunned her.  
She just laughed and hugged him when he stuttered his apology.  
"You guys have some weird sleeping arrangements." he giggled and motioned towards Ron who was still snoring on the couch. He seemed much more peaceful now.  
"Ron had nightmare." muttered Harry a little bit embarrassed.  
"I didn't have the heart to wake him, but I thought I shouldn't let him alone." Harry let his unruly hair hide his eyes. He didn't want to burden Ginny more than he already had.  
"He's missing Hermione."  
"We all do!" she whispered, her voice breaking in sadness.  
He felt guilty for reminding her.

"He...I think he thought about...you know...marrying her...starting a family... the way he looked at her...she was special to him...a ...uh ...different kind of...special than to me."  
Ginny looked at him patiently waiting until he finished his stammering becoming quieter and quieter when she thought he was finished she pulled him in a wordless hug.  
"It's not your fault." she said after a while and he nodded in her shoulder.  
It was not that they explicitly said it, but since that moment, when they hugged, while Ron was snoring on the couch, they were a couple again.  
It was like Harry didn't even need to say anything. All the puzzle pieces magically fell into place on their own...if you ignored the gigantic part missing in the golden trio.

Ron reacted as if he'd known that they'd start going out again.  
Sad shadows still clouded his eyes and he looked as tired as Harry felt, but he smiled and seemed to be genuinely happy for them.  
Ginny helped Harry a lot to start getting a perspective again.

He started to think about people again.  
With this he also noticed that demise of Voldemort left a vacuum that a lot of smaller criminals of the Wizard world now eagerly tried to fill.  
People that had been scared and passive during the war, now started to commit crimes again and with that you needed someone to take care of it.  
It was without a question for Harry that the one taking care of it would be him and that Ron would be by his side for whatever he planned to do.  
It's been always like that.  
Harry initiated their adventures and Ron and...Hermione...  
they made it work.  
He wasn't sure if they could make it work without Hermione.  
He knew for sure though, that wouldn't work without Ron.  
Hence, didn't even think about ask what Ron wanted to do when he pulled him with him one morning to the office of the new Minister of Magic and declared that they wanted to help.  
After a short training period done by Kingsley and working their way through the standard literature for Defence Against the Dark Arts, him and Ron became the twin-head of the newly re-founded Auror Department.

They had their job cut out for them and as war veterans, as Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, no one even tried oppose the idea of two teenagers leading one of the most important law enforcement divisions of whole Britain.  
Something Harry personally thought was pretty funny...not that he did complain.  
The first thing they did was making inventory.  
Finding out which Aurors were still alive and able to continue the job, re-evaluating their political and ethical suitability for the job.  
They slowly started to sent out people on missions again and they had the first successful catches.  
Harry was surprisingly happy.  
He still missed Hermione madly, but he found himself smiling more and enjoying to be of use for the people around him.  
Once or twice he even noticed Ron's hidden smile return.  
The one with wrinkles around his eyes slightly curling and his eyes almost too bright to look at.  
He always felt his own self-esteem grow a few inches when he managed to coax it out.

Harry found himself spending more time with Ginny, she kept his mind away from the war in a way no one else could.  
Most of his friends had been involved in the war and when he met them it seemed like they always seemed obligated to either talk about it or they were to scared to mention it, that it was a giant bloody hippogriff in the room.  
Ginny was easy going, she had this Weasley way of going smoothly through life perfected to a science. Seemingly effortless.  
It was something he admired greatly about Ginny, Fred and George as well as Bill.  
Watching them go through life was like watching a wild horse jumping over an obstacle. It always seemed fluid and like a game to them.

Ron, while he spend far more thoughts on "life" than his siblings, had that ability too.  
He picked knowledge up on the go, like randomly picking a flower and with the same grace and ease he used it to solve every day problems.  
Harry was reminded of back then in year one when they were searching in the library for Nicolas Flamel.  
While Harry and Hermione had be searching goal-orientated, Hermione of course having a far wider approach than Harry, Ron had just strolled through the rows of books and randomly picked up one here or there, skimming through it.  
Ron was able to connect things, Hermione and him never thought about and he noticed things.  
While Harry lost his ability to talk Parseltongue, Ron could still say a few phrases he'd picked up from listening to Harry talking in his sleep.  
He even knew what they meant, which was a little bit creepy if you thought too much about it.

However, while Ron had this ease too, he was much too involved in all this war stuff, was way too symbiotic with Harry, for being the person that put Harry's mind off of the war, of all the death, his own guilt and work.  
It was nice to go out with Ginny.  
He'd visit Hogsmeade on weekends to spend time with her, since she went back to school after the summer.  
They'd go to the pub or take a walk and Harry greatly enjoyed Ginny talk about school and some random stuff she and Luna did to get the people around them smile.  
Harry was more than willing to talk with her about Quidditch tactics and encouraged her to try out for the British League, because she was a bloody brilliant player.

It took a few months until he noticed that Ron also started to go out.  
When he came home, Ron wasn't always in his room and Harry wasn't sure how to deal with Ron going somewhere and doing things without him knowing.  
He got even more nervous when he noticed that sometimes when he stayed over night with Ginny he'd find Ron entering their apartment around the same time.  
Ron was smelling of beer, sweat and cold smoke.  
He had deep, dark bags under his eyes, his face grey and stubbly and his hair stringy and dishevelled from strangers running their fingers through the golden-red strands.  
Sometimes there were even purple little blotches on his neck and behind his ear that look suspiciously like love bites.  
Harry wasn't sure why he hated it so much...probably because he didn't know who it was and there were only very few people he'd trust to make Ron happy.  
Like...Hermione.  
That's it.  
It was a very short list of people.

Hermione wasn't there anymore though and so he begrudgingly accepted that Ron had things going on with other people.  
He still hated it.  
He complained about it, when he met Ginny the next time they met, but she just got quiet and her face grew a bit sad for a moment before she answered that, if there was someone that mattered enough, Ron would surely tell them about it.  
He hurried to change the topic, since it hurt him to see her sad.  
It was times like these when he was unsure if he really knew any of the Weasley siblings good enough to understand them.  
It was like Ron and Ginny had some kind of secret language or some kind of brain-to-brain connection that made them see and understand things about the other that Harry, even after all these years of knowing and living with them, didn't get.  
He envied them for that.  
Even if a majority of their interaction was nagging and teasing each other, it must be nice to have siblings that'll always be on your side when things got really hard.

It was over a year later, they had their NEWTs and Ginny was starting as a chaser for the Harpies in the winter season.  
The end of the war was occasion for the British Wizard community and everywhere seemed to pregnant witches and newborns.  
Bill's daughter Victoire, born exactly one year after the battle of Hogwarts, was already getting more mobile, happily bubbling in her father's arm during dinner and Fred just told the family that him an his girlfriend Angelina were also expecting.  
Ginny has silently asked him if he planned to be the next in the family to become dad, which made Harry almost choke on his drink.  
He was happy to be perceived as part of the Weasley family so casually.  
Children though...  
He wasn't sure what he thought of children.  
It wasn't that he didn't like them...he just didn't know what to do with them.  
He never really had contact with small children, the smallest being the first-years in Hogwarts and back then he'd been just a few years older than them.

He was forcefully pulled out of his thoughts by Ron pushing back his chair so abruptly that it toppled over and the back collided loudly with the stone tiles.  
A bit confused Harry lifted his gaze from the floor just to see Ron storming out of the house and slamming the door closed and leaving a table of dumbfounded Weasleys behind.  
Harry watched them exchanging glances and for a moment he meant to see George twitching the eyes on the door, as if he wanted to follow Ron outside.  
Harry was sure that none of the Weasley was the right one to speak to Ron now.  
Ron just left the room because of them, and knowing his friend's temperament, Harry assumed that it was because he was about to lose it.  
Harry scrambled ungracefully over the kitchen bench to the door and slipped out side in the blueness of the evening.

He closed the door quietly behind himself and observed his friend's silhouette in front of the sky. Rail thin and slightly bending under the weight of his worries.  
He stepped beside him, close enough to feel the warmth were their biceps touched, staring stubbornly in the darkness before them, allowing Ron the privacy not to hide his pain.  
"You okay?" Harry croaked, even though he knew the answer.

Ron would never be okay again.

Harry didn't need to look at his friend to know that he had difficulties to squeeze words out of him. So close to the heart.  
"Hermione." Ron finally whispered and even after year, Harry still didn't know how to deal with this.  
He would never be able to give Ron what he'd seen in Hermione. There'd always be this gigantic hole and he didn't know how to fill it.  
Hermione would have known how to deal with a Ron, that was broken like this. Mourning, silent, helpless Ron.  
Hermione would hug him, she'd know what to say to make him feel better, even if just a bit.  
Harry was bad at comforting people.  
Especially bad when there was no way it would ever get better.  
He hesitated, not sure of Ron wanted closeness right now, but then he clumsily laid his arm around Ron's neck and awkward pulled him down in a slightly uncomfortable, awkward one-armed hug.  
It felt weird.  
They never have touched each other much.  
Harry always felt sometimes like it was forbidden, like he was stealing touches, so he rarely initiated body contact with anyone.  
It seemed to help Ron though.  
He felt Ron's arm snake around his back and his weight when he leaned against him.  
The redhead let out a shaky breath and his fingers dug into Harry's side.  
They went quiet for a moment, Harry frantically trying to find something, anything to say to help his friend and nervous as always when people were too close.  
Harry was sure Ron could hear his heart thundering, but if he did, Ron said anything.  
"Some days are more difficult." Ron muttered hoarsely after what seemed like hours.  
Harry didn't answer, just stayed close, the arm around his shoulder and trying to not cling to him in his own helplessness.

The evening got slightly better after they came back in the house.  
Harry felt like he just played a long Quidditch match. Dealing with Ron, when he was like that and asking himself what was okay and what would make Ron feel even worse was emotionally draining.  
He didn't have much energy left when Ginny pulled him beside her and started a quiet conversation with him, while Ron sat down next to George.  
There was something terrible wrong, Harry concluded by the worried looks the whole family shot in direction of Ron and George.  
It seemed as if Ron was deliberately pulled George's attention away from Fred, who was fast asleep next to his girlfriend.  
Harry only listened to Ginny talking about her last school match with one ear, observing the two emptying their glasses of whiskey, almost wordless, the same grim smile on their faces.  
Sullenly trying to seem okay.  
Suddenly George resembled his little brother more than the twin that was blissfully snoring on the couch across the room.

It was getting late and Harry, starting to get a little jealous of George so easily monopolising Ron's attention, joined the two, which resulted both of them looking less unhappy and wearing the same lopsided grin while George filled a third glass and clumsily pushed it in Harry's hands.  
"To Fred's baby!" George mumbled once more, taking a deep sip of his glass and Ron toasted to "absent friends". Harry choked down the sadness that threatened to make his eyes burn and emptied his glass in one go.  
He tried to ignore how normal it was for George to lay an arm around Ron's shoulder, while he silently told them about a new invention him and Fred had planned out.  
He felt bad for being so crappy at body contact.  
George knew how to touch and hug Ron...he didn't feel like shivering in fever, like his skin was crawling and burning when he got close to people...especially Ron.  
Harry should be more like George...he should be normal.

He was almost happy when Ginny sat down on the armrest of the couch and casually leaned against him, making him feel the well-known nervousness. He looked up in her face and tried to smile before turning his attention back to George again who almost knocked the bottle of Odgen's from the side-table when he told about an explosion they had in their laboratory a few days ago.  
Ron snorted and Harry couldn't help but laugh when he saw Ron's face brighten up and the wrinkles around his eyes crinkle gently into a smile for the first time this evening.  
He felt almost jealous that he wasn't the one making Ron smile like that.

It seemed like hours later when Ginny patted on his shoulder and with a promising grin nodded with her head towards the stairs.  
Harry felt Ron tense beside him and turned his head away from Ginny. Ron was suddenly very quiet and a silent plea shimmered in his eyes, but Harry didn't know how decode it and Ginny pulled him behind her upstairs.  
Harry heard Mrs. Weasley saying something and Bill laughing, then they were too far away and Harry felt Ginny's lips on his own.  
He needed a few second to respond, grateful for Ginny drawing his thoughts away from Ron, from Ron looking lonely. As if Harry'd left him... like Hermione.

They had sex for the first time that night.  
It felt weird.  
Harry's face burned over his own clumsiness. Ginny's body felt strange and her face, distorted by affection and lust, almost scared him.  
But her hair was soft and shimmering beautifully in the moonlight. He liked the way she smelled and over all, it was awkward, but it didn't feel that bad.  
The morning after was even more awkward though.  
Harry absconded from the room and hid in the bathroom, taking a shower and feeling dirty... guilty...  
Was this how one should feel after having sex with their girlfriend?  
Was this normal?

When her came down stairs, the breakfast was already in full swing and something was extremely wrong.  
Fred was so frantic, he was almost unable to hold the tea cup in his shivering hands and he pressed his lips together so much that they were almost white.  
Ron sat beside him, looking sad and tired and shooting Fred angry glanced, as if it was Fred's fault that George wasn't there anymore.  
George was gone.  
Harry saw the eruption coming.

At the same moment when Ron lunged at Fred to hit him, he was on his feet, yanking Ron towards his chest, away from Bill's and Charlie's hand that desperately tried to keep him from hurting Fred.  
He felt Ron's laboured breath against his collar and his sinewy hands trying to push away from him, but Harry didn't let go and apparated them to their flat.  
He knew what Ron needed.  
He needed to be away from his family.  
Away of the ones that angered him, and then he needed someone he could take out his anger on.

As soon as they arrived a fist collided with his face and Ron wrestled him roughly to the ground.  
Harry's blood thump loudly in his ears. His nose hurt.  
He hit back, tried to get Ron down from him, but they've fought often enough, trained hand-to-hand combat enough for Ron to give up the upper hand so fast.  
Harry managed to to grip one of the heavy books on the coffee-table and threw it against Ron head to make him back away with a quiet curse.  
Harry didn't give Ron the time to think, pushed him down, hitting him in the face, ignoring the dark purple mark the book had left on Ron's cheek.  
If a fist fight was what Ron needed, he'd give his all.

The rush of adrenaline and the sureness to be needed blinded him, they attacked each other with punches, bites, bumping into the table, shoving each other against shelves, cluttering books Quidditch equipment all over the living room in the process.  
Finally the adrenaline dropped.  
Ron was kneeling above him, one arm pushed against his throat blocking him from standing up and heavily breathing.  
There was a deep cut in Ron's lip and the flesh sparkled in hit, fresh blood glinted on his face, deformed in a feral snarl.  
There were big purple bruises all over the pale, freckled face and Harry thought that it looked beautiful in a odd way.  
He felt himself nervously licking his lips and shifting under Ron's weight.  
He shouldn't feel good in a position like this.

Harry was almost disappointed when his friend came on his feet and reached out to help him stand up as well.  
Ron looked around the room, like he'd been woken from a dream.  
Ron was so frustratingly alive and glorious that it hurt.  
"Feel better, arsehole?" Harry heard himself growl and for a moment Ron looked him right in the eyes and Harry felt the urge to lock him up and keep him somewhere safe, hide him from the world, so that no one would ever hurt him again.  
He didn't need Ron answering "No" to know that his friend wasn't well.

Then he was forcefully pulled against Ron's chest.  
Long, gangly arms closing around his shoulders, fast breath against his ears and Ron smearing blood in his shirt when he buried the face in is shoulder.  
Harry didn't like hugs in general but this one was especially uncomfortable, with the way Ron's body was hard and angular and way too warm against his own.  
Unsure what to do and numbed by the sudden ebb of adrenaline he awkwardly patted Ron's back.

"I feel shitty. Hermione is gone, George is gone and you'll go too and... everything's just..." Ron's voice breathed hot and hoarsely against his ear.  
Harry felt angry.  
He wouldn't be able to leave Ron even if he tried.  
Had Ron so little trust in their friendship that he thought Harry'd give him up?!  
"I'm not...!" he grunted and pressed his flat hands against Ron's chest to push him away. Ron should see his face. He wanted to be sure that Ron's knew how serious he was about this.  
"...going anywhere!"

there was a pause.  
It seemed like Ron was desperately was searching for something to hold on in Harry face.  
Seemingly unsuccessful though. Ron looked tired and a hopeless sigh escaped his chapped lips that sounded almost like "Harry!"  
His big, skinny hands gripped at both side Harry neck and his thumbs pressed almost gently into his jaws.  
"You'll move together with Ginny."  
Harry wanted to scream that he wanted to stay with Ron, that he wouldn't leave him, that Ron could trust him and rely on him, but the way his friend looked at him, the decision seemed to be made already.  
It wasn't like he could say anything against it.

He knew what the Weasleys expected from him after he made his move towards Ginny.  
Their little sister wasn't some random fling and with accepting him as her boyfriend, it was clear that the Weasley brothers assumed Harry and Ginny would spend their life together.  
Harry wouldn't complain would he?  
He liked Ginny after all.  
Yes, being intimate with her was awkward, but it would get better, wouldn't it?  
It was awkward with everyone after all.  
Harry was just not used to it.  
He could learn to be someone that could make Ginny happy.  
And if Ginny was happy, perhaps Ron would learn to smile again.

Eight weeks later they moved together.  
Ron used the same weekend to move his things in a studio apartment close to the Diagon Alley.  
At the evening Harry, Ginny and her brothers got really drunk, sitting on the floor a an empty apartment.  
Charlie had come from Romania to help them move and played one song after song on the guitar with Bill and Fred changing the lyrics and making Ginny giggle in delight, one arm thrown around Ron's waist to keep her steady.  
Even Percy was there quietly drinking his beer, leaning against the wall.  
The smile crinkling the winkles around his eyes weren't the same as Ron's...but you could see so much that he was one of the Weasleys and happy to be on good terms with his family again.  
Harry felt like an intruder.  
They slept in snuggly, colourful sleeping bags that Bill conjured with a _Torus Ori_.  
It was the last night he fell a sleep hearing the soothing sound of Ron's snoring.

Living with Ginny was difficult.  
He had to work hard to keep up with her wishes. To keep her smiling.  
He missed coming in the kitchen in the morning and seeing Ron glance fondly over his newspaper in his direction.  
The way they had breakfast in peaceful silence and the way the sat together after work, tired but content in the knowledge to do the right thing.  
He missed being with Ron.  
He missed Ron so much it hurt every morning when he entered the kitchen and saw Ginny making breakfast and every evening he entered the flat to find Ginny wanting to do things with him when he just wanted to sit and drink his beer.  
The time he spend during the day working with Ron was not enough.  
It'd never be enough!  
It seemed like Ron slipped through his finger and the distance between them seemed to grow with every time Ron refused to visit him and Ginny in their new home.  
It wasn't fair towards Ginny that he felt disappointed when he saw her and so he tried hard to be good, to be worthy of her love.  
Because she's brilliant. Talented, beautiful, sensitive and passionate. The best girl he could wish for as a girlfriend.  
And if touching her still felt awkward he had to try harder and learn to love it and make her happy.  
It was Ginny that asked him if they wanted to marry.  
Harry didn't see any other possibility than this.  
He agreed without thinking about it.

Ron got almost killed in September that year.  
He'd been home early, because he promised to cook for Ginny when an express owl landed roughly in Ginny's lasagne.  
"Harry...Please wait 'til after dinner, Love." Ginny asked when he was about to reach for the letter.  
So he obediently nodded, waved his wand to give her a new plate with food and they finished.  
After dinner he hastily opened the letter and as soon as he did he felt like someone had thrown him in cold water.  
It was a hastily scribbled notice from Percy informing him that Ron went solo to hunt down one of the few Death Eaters still not imprisoned, he was probably in over his head and the estimated location.  
There was a short, heated discussion between Harry and Ginny, but finally Ginny joined him to arrive at the location.

It was quiet there.  
The door was ajar and the whole house reeked of dark magic. Harry felt Ginny shiver beside her, but he didn't waste time to try to console her and cautiously slipping inside the house and searching the rooms until he reached something like big pantry behind the kitchen.  
There was blood on the floor and there were heavy duty rings in wall between the shelves filled with tins of food, that were obviously used to keep someone or something big chained.  
Whoever had been staying in this house, they'd planned to spent a long time here.  
He vaguely noticed Ginny crying when he numbly started to scan the room for traces, something to tell him that Ron was here.  
And he found them.  
Tiny strands of red hair on the floor under the rings and chains.  
A fast identification charm showed positive for Ron.  
Ron.  
No.  
he couldn't bear...he wouldn't survive losing Ron.  
Frantically he started look for something, anything that told him where Ron was brought.  
Ginny started to moan in raw grief.  
A moment later Harry pulled her behind her and pointed his wand at a dozen people pouring into the small room.

"Potter!" said one of the senior Aurors and Harry lowered slowly the wand when he recognised the members of his department.  
"Where's..." he started but was cut off by Dawlish informing him that Ron was at St. Mungos.  
Harry barely stayed long enough to hear that the fight was already over when they reached the scene of crime.  
Whitman had been killed by Percy Weasley, who'd came to save his brother after informing the Aurors.

Seeing Ron in a hospital bed was a way to familiar sight.  
Harry was fuming.  
Now that he knew that Ron was alive, he was barely able to control himself to not beat his friend up in front of his whole family for scaring him like that.  
Ron looked weak and there were still fainted traced of torture all over his body and face.  
Burns, cuts and bruises that started to fade, now that he was very likely drugged up to his eyeballs with potions.  
Ginny stormed to the side of Ron's bed almost tripping over her dad's legs and threw herself in Ron's arms.  
Ron rocked her gently, pet her head and stroked her back in attempt to calm her down, mumbling quietly in her ear, while his eyes searched Harry's.  
Harry saw him flinching when he noticed the anger. Guilt washing over Ron's face.  
Harry saw him open his mouth, but fled the room before he could listen to what his partner wanted to say.  
It was the first time he cried, since that afternoon when he allowed himself to mourn for Hermione.  
Harry locked himself in the bedroom, that he shared with Ginny, and cried until there were not tears left.  
For his fear, for his grief, his anger and the unbelievable luck that Ron was still with him.  
After that he was so exhausted that he fell asleep.  
He was woken by Ginny banging against the door several hours later.

The next day at lunch time, he made his way to Percy's office to find out more about the case.  
Percy looked like he had already waited for him, looking serious and seemingly in the mood to give Harry a few words about letting himself get fooled by Ron. Letting him bring him himself in danger like that.  
The official interrogation was short, they both where not the type to drag oficial prcedures.  
just when Harry thought he'd asked all important questions, Percy fixated him with his eyes.

"Ron is unhappy." he said quietly.

Harry froze.  
There was a silent accusation in his voice that was impossible to ignore.  
"I haven't talked with the rest of the family yet, but I believe there's more behind it than Ron trying to protect you, Harry."  
Percy started to absent-mindedly organise his papers.  
"He wanted to bring himself in danger. It felt like a suicide mission."  
Harry felt his stomach clench at the mere thought.  
"Ron's not the type to do something like that!" he protested. Why should Ron do something like? He survived a war, he has family and friends that dearly love him!  
He refused to believe that Ron would even think of doing something like that.  
"I don't say that it was a conscious decision but still...I think he at least condoned it as a possibility. An easy way out without making us suffer, making us believe he was just doing his duty...died on the job!"  
Percy's became more and more agitated while talking.  
"You should have seen him, Harry! He had already accepted his own death when I came in!"  
Harry hit on the table to make him stop in his rambling.  
"Ron wouldn't leave me like that!" he hissed and he didn't care in that moment how egocentric it could sound to others.  
"He's my partner! I trust him! He did something stupid, but he wouldn't deliberately trying to get himself killed!"  
Percy's face got softer.  
"I hope you're right." he sighed, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes a few times.  
He looked tired, like he hadn't slept well the last night.  
"It's not easy going somewhere with the fear of being too late and finding the corpse of your baby brother. I'm not an Auror and I'm sure if I want Ron to keep doing that job."  
Harry nodded and felt suddenly very bad to pull his friend with him in such a dangerous profession.

"Ron is not happy, Harry. I'm sure of that and I believe it has in some way to do with you." he pointed with one of the arms of his glasses at Harry.  
"Talk to him, Harry."  
there was a silent pause then Harry stood up.  
"I'll ask him." Harry promised and concluded their conversation with a friendly nod before leaving the office.  
In front of the door he had to lean against the wall, trying to not think about how small and exhausted Ron had looked in the hospital bed.  
What if Percy had been too slow?  
What if it was really because of him?  
Because he was not good enough as a friend.h

He needed almost a whole week to pick up enough courage to talk with Ron and when he stood in front of his door, staring into Ron's face, the words were gone and he was just feeling angry and betrayed and so bloody relieved at the same time.  
They had a row again.  
One day in the far future they needed to learn to fight in a way that didn't leave both of them full bruises and cuts.  
Now, however he was just happy to sit beside Ron. Cooling their bruises with cold bottles of beer he felt happier than in a long time.  
They were good.  
Ron was still weirdly melancholic, but his smile was real.  
Harry just wanted to crawl into the comfort of their friendship and hide from everything else.  
From Ginny, from work and from himself.  
He couldn't though.  
There were people that trusted him and relied on him and so he reluctantly came on his feet when he noticed that Ron was already almost asleep next to him and apparated in his apartment.

Ginny was still awake. The worried crease above her nose between her eyebrows grew deeper when she noticed how deranged he looked and she started to perform a few healing charms.  
Something she was pretty experienced since Quidditch was a dangerous sport and she rarely left training without some kind of bruise.  
"I needed to talk to Ron." he explained sheepishly and she mumbled under her breath that the two of them would probably never grow up.  
Shortly after that he was beside her in their bed, listening to her calm breathing and couldn't sleep.  
A well-known problem. Harry had always been pants at falling asleep and sleeping through.  
Spending so much time in the same dormitory as Ron he was so used to his snoring, that it felt wrong when it was all quiet.  
For a moment he played with the thought to ask Ron for a recording of his snoring, but Ginny would probably strangle him when he tried something like that.

The next day was Saturday and Harry spend the morning, to his dismay, by discussing wedding decorations with Ginny.  
He hated it.  
The thought of the wedding alone made him feel sick, so nervous was he.  
He missed Hermione again. She'd known him and would have been happy to discuss topics like this with Ginny instead of him.

A knock at the door made them look up and Harry heard Ginny's joyous voice from the hallway when she went to open the door.  
Shortly after that a chatty, happy Ginny and a hesitantly grinning Ron stepped in the kitchen and allowed Harry to look up from the dreaded wedding magazines.  
He felt a broad smile spread over his face. The day got instantly a bit brighter when he saw Ron curiously looking around the kitchen.  
They showed Ron the rooms.  
Ginny did most of the talking, clinging to her brother's arm and kissing Harry and being so giddy that it was contagious.  
However, while Harry felt himself grin as broadly as Ginny, Ron seemed nervous, like there was another reason for his visit, than just him being curious about their new home.

Harry's guess was right as he understood when Ron asked his sister to leave the house, what she did after the siblings shared a silent conversation that made Harry feel a bit jealous.  
He'd love to have this kind of blind understanding with both of them.  
The conversation that followed was the most open Harry ever had with Ron.  
He felt uncomfortable hearing Ron lay his heart open to him, making himself so vulnerable and trust him so much to not hurt him.

"I'm gay." blurted Ron out as soon as Ginny had closed the door..  
He seemed almost scared to lose his courage if he didn't say it fast enough.  
kneading his hands nervously, he didn't give Harry the time to answer in some way.  
"I... fancy you, Harry."  
Harry thought for a moment that Ron just wanted to take the piss of out of him, but his grin died when he noticed how serious his friend looked at him.  
"I'm sorry that I never said something, but there never seemed the right moment..." his voice died down he looked down on his hands, that were still shivering slightly.  
"What's with Hermione? I thought..."  
Ron looked him in the face, his blue eyes burning so bright that Harry barely could stand to look at them.  
"I loved her! Still love her! I miss her so much!" the pain was raw in his voice.  
"But..."Ron nervously rubbed the back of his neck.  
"My love for you and for her isn't the same." His voices, his face, his eyes, his hands...everything seemed to go soft and gentle.  
Harry had never seen him like that and he didn't know what to do with this pile of affection that was so suddenly dumped in front of his feet.  
He opened his mouth to say something but Ron cut him off again, bombarding him with words Harry was barely able to decode.  
"Look! I don't expect you to do anything! I don't want the way you see me change! Our friendship is important for me! We went trough so much shit together and you stayed with me! You can just ignore it! I wouldn't do anything! Please..."  
he could see the panic creep on Ron's face and his hand crook into desperately claws.  
Ron was scared to lose Harry.  
He was terrified, that Harry would abandon him because he wasn't _normal_! As if he could ever do that!

Ron, from the first moment they met each other, was never normal.  
That Ron back then had been so willing to be Harry's friend, Harry who never had a friend before, was the most extraordinary thing that ever happened to Harry.  
Just because for Harry it was the safest to be normal, Ron didn't need to try to be normal too.  
Harry's rules didn't apply to anyone else but him, especially not Ron.  
Without thinking he hooked his hand behind the red haired head and pulled Ron's face into in his shoulder.  
Ron melted into his arms and burying his nose in the crook of Harry neck. He heard Ron breath in relief.  
"You don't get rid of me so easily, Ron!" Harry mumbled in Ron shoulder and for a moment it crossed him mind that this was probably the first hug that didn't feel totally uncomfortable and awkward, it even felt kind of nice.  
"You're my best mate. My first, oldest and most special friend and there's nothing in the world that can change that." He felt Ron nod and his hands claw into folds of his shirt.  
Harry was a bit shocked how nice it felt when he was allowed to hug someone on his own terms. He was not overpowered by another persons feelings or trapped in arms that grew heavy on his shoulders.

It felt good to be accepted and wanted exactly the way he was.  
Even if he never was allowed to give what Ron wanted, he still felt a little bit happy to be so important in his friend's life.  
"It's okay Ron. I trust you and I don't want to lose you. I just don't know how..."  
Ron gently pushed him away a bit to look him in the eyes and Harry almost regretted that the sudden  
They were still close enough that Harry felt his breath prickle on his cheek and would have been able to count Ron eyes lashes, an almost white, fluttering and wet.  
There were traces of tears on the creamy, freckled skin.  
Ron looked so vulnerable, that Harry felt the urge again. The urge to hide his friend away from all bad in the world.  
Ron should only be happy.  
He'd had enough of sadness and hurt.  
Ron needed to be happy.  
Harry watched his friend's face becoming more distant and the vulnerable side of him safely tucked away under the solid carapace of his brave, challenging grin.

Ron has always been one of the strongest and bravest people Harry knew.  
Showing this side of himself to Harry was just another occasion for him to realise how much of a Gryffindor Ron was.  
"I don't want anything to change between us Harry. I just...I didn't want to lie to you anymore."  
He made a step back and Harry's hands slid from from his shoulder.  
"I don't expect you to acknowledge it! Just ignore it! Forget about it! Just remember, that I want to stay with you as a friend and that you can trust me to support you and Ginny..."  
there was a short silence.  
Ron stuffed his hands in the pockets of his worn-out jeans and Harry was still in awe about how he managed to gain the friendship of such wonderful person as Ron.  
"Seeing you and Ginny happy..."  
Harry can see the lie arriving but he decided to ignore it.  
"...makes me...a very lucky brother and friend."  
Ron doesn't like seeing him and Ginny together, he doesn't like seeing any guy with his baby sister and anyone but him with Harry, it's like it's written in bold letters across the redhead's face.  
However, if he has to accept his beloved little sister having a partner and he can't have Harry, it was probably the easiest for him to accept them being in a partnership with each other.

"I'm going to give up, Harry."  
Ron said and he looks so willing to give himself up for Harry.  
Harry wanted to shake him.  
It made him so angry he wanted to shake Ron until he came back to his senses and understood how important he was.  
"I'm giving you up. I know you love Ginny. She's my precious little sister, I love her too. Nothing will change. We'll be partners and you'll be happy, Ginny and you, and I'll be with you guys and we'll have our friends and the family around and everything will be fine."  
There was silence again.  
Harry didn't know what to say.  
Harry coughed and wiped over his eyes, noticing they're wet.  
"Alright..." he muttered hoarsely and nodded airily.

"I...if that's you want, I won't mention it again. You're...sexual orientation won't change anything about our friendship."  
It felt wrong.  
Of course it changed something!  
It changed everything!  
The certainty to be loved by glorious, brilliant, brave, loyal Ronald Weasley was probably one of the most wonderful and most scary things he ever knew.  
Hesitantly, almost shy he stared in the freckled face, not sure if he was allowed to talk about how he felt, if he should...

Ron let out a impatient groan and ruffled Harry's already chaotic mop of hair.  
"Stop thinking, Harry! Come on! Let's go listen to the game!"  
His rumbling laugh sounded uncomfortable and there was a tinge of sadness in it, but Harry still understood, that he wanted to go back to easier topics, wanted ignore the giant pink hippogriff in the room.  
What kind of friend would he be if he wouldn't do that for Ron.  
Ron tried so hard for him, for his family, for Ginny...Harry could put in a bit of effort to to make it less awkward for him.  
When Ginny entered the apartment a little while later they were sitting on opposite end of the couch listening to weekly Quidditch broadcast.  
Harry was still amazed how easy it was to go back to normal.

The next months went in a blur.  
There was so much work, so much planning for the wedding.  
They moved again, this time back into the Grimmauld Place. Ron helped them move and made the house fit for a family home.  
With Ron close, living with Ginny was less awkward. Perhaps it was just because he got used to her.  
What started as an action to calm Ginny but mostly himself that they did the right thing, slowly became almost an addiction.  
Every time Harry showed affection to Ginny. When he hugged her, or kissed her or patted her jeans-clad backside to make her squeal and chase after him, he could feel Ron's eyes on him.  
Ron staring at him, conflicted between the wish for Harry to be happy and the jealousy that it wasn't him that made him feel that way.  
He did though.  
Seeing Ron feel so intensely for him was like an addiction and he found himself explicitly trying to coax out these burning, jealous looks from his friend by displaying affection towards Ginny.  
It was a small pleasure.  
It didn't hurt anyone and Ron had said he should ignore what he'd told him... it wasn't like he'd Ron ever let him have him that way.  
Harry was _normal_ after all.  
Sometimes it even seemed like Ron was relieved that Harry's and Ginny's relationship was going so well.  
And if it made Harry feel better thinking of Ron's jealous expression when he and Ginny were intimate, no one needed to know that, no one was hurt and Ginny was happy that he finally seemed to relax.

The wedding was a less scary experience than he had expected.  
Ginny looked blindingly beautiful in her dark lacy dress robe that was clinging to her hour-glass figure in the most delicious way.  
An old diadem that had been in the Prewett family for centuries sparkled in her hair. Blue flowers were stitched on the short veil and every freckle in her morning-bright skin seemed to scream for his attention.  
Harry was so bloody grateful to be allowed to make her Mrs. Potter.  
Ron was at his side as his best man. Steady, proud, with a guarded expression but still there to support him and Ginny as he'd promised.

All people that were important to him and still alive were there to celebrate this milestone with him and Ginny.  
He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so happy.  
The Weasleys' extensive family was present and loud and full of laughter, red hair and freckled skin and Harry allowed himself a little daydream about becoming the father of similar beautiful red haired children. Perhaps a daughters. He'd love to have a daughter as fierce, loyal and brilliant as Ginny.  
It was the first time he thought about having children.

One arm around Ginny's waist he made his way to her siblings after the dinner was over and the band started to prepare for the dance.  
Percy and Bill, both tall, rail thin and the respective wife at their side grinned broadly and Harry had to let go of his girl for a moment since she was too busy getting cuddled by her armada of big brothers.  
Harry found himself watching from the sidelines, his cheeks hurting from the broadness of his grin.  
Next to him stood a man he didn't knew. He had red hair, but a paler shade than that of the Weasley men.  
Harry assumed that he was one of Arthur's many nephews until he turned towards him and his face didn't resemble any of the many Weasley relatives around them.  
When he opened his mouth the man had a strong Texan accent, which made it a bit difficult to understand him.  
The man introduced himself as Chris and he was George's boyfriend. The second information made Harry almost choke on his drink.  
After a bit of coughing and wheezing he was able to look into Chris' worried face.  
"Sorry." croaked Harry.  
"It's not that I...you know...don't accept it...it's just that I didn't know that George's gay."  
Chris laughed.  
Harry kind of liked him.  
He seemed to fit well with the Weasleys.  
Calm, confident in in some way even cool. He seemed like a good guy and if Harry interpreted the way he watched his boyfriend right, he really cared for George.  
"You better be good with him though. The Weasleys can be scary when it comes to their siblings."  
Chris grinned broadly.  
"Did they give you the 'hurt our sister and we'll hex your balls off"-talk?" He chuckled.  
Harry rolled his eyes.  
"They don't have to. I know they would. Fred and George would probably find the most painful and humiliating way to do so." he laughed letting his gaze wander over the sea of red heads fondly.  
He wouldn't want it any other way  
"Everyone's always calling them that.. sometimes I don't know if you can even tell them apart. It's annoying, because among our friends around anyone but his family, it's not "Fred'n George" "George and Chris". I know it's because they're twins, but it is still annoying."  
Harry didn't dare to look the other man in the face.  
"You know..." he tried to say, stuffing the hands in the pockets if his dark green dress robe.  
"I don't think love is something that get smaller when you share it. You can love a lot of people in very different way and it won't even them at all. Look..."  
he felt a bit uncomfortable with Chris staring at him.  
"Ginny is the woman I want to spend my life with. I want to share her happy times with her and support her when she's having difficult times. Perhaps one day I want to have children...a happy, normal family..." he trailed of.  
It was a dream, he always had as a child.  
One day he'd be an adult. He'd have a beautiful wife with red hair, like his grade school teacher, and they'd have redhead children and he'd be a better dad than Uncle Vernon ever was.  
He never really thought about how close he was to that dream already.  
It always seemed impossible.  
"...But Ron is my best mate for so long that I'd feel like losing an arm or leg when I were without him."

Chris finally turned his head away. Harry felt himself sigh in relief. He hated talking about himself, but this man seemed to really care for George and he wanted them to be as happy as he was with Ginny.  
Christ mustered Ron, who had one arm thrown around Percy's waist grinning and chatting happily with Percy's wife Audrey. Harry followed his gaze and felt himself go quiet in the sudden realisation that hit him.  
Ron hadn't shown such a carefree grin in a long time when he came to visit him an Ginny.  
He'd always seemed on edge, suppressed, eager to let no one see how much it effected him to see Harry happy with someone else...Harry wanted to shake him, beat that stupid grin out of the face that he didn't show around him anymore, because he was never carefree around him again.  
Always worried about keeping Harry happy.  
"Anyways..." he mumbled trying to ban the irritated tinge from his voice.  
"Just because George loves Fred a lot as a brother and twin doesn't mean that you're less loved. He may just not love you like a twin brother..."  
Chris laughed but his eyes were shadowed.  
"I have a big family. I know a lot about loving your siblings, but these two are still special."  
he muttered more to him self than to Harry.  
"Life's not always a rose garden..."  
Harry stayed quiet. He didn't want dwell too much in sad thoughts on an evening like this.  
They shared a friendly silence before Harry decided to chime in and lead his wife away from her brothers to the buffet.

Harry had second thoughts about their marriage in the wedding night.  
He dreamed about Ron having sex with Percy and woke up, with the need to throw up. Silently he stepped into his pyjama bottoms and scattered to the bathroom.  
He barely made it to the toilet bowl.  
Desperately he tried to erase that thought of Ron's blissful smile while he was clinging to his brother.  
Dream-Harry had felt like tearing them apart and hexing Percy into a unrecognisable blob of meat.  
For a moment he'd allowed himself to be jealous.  
"disgusting." he grunted and washed his mouth out and swore to himself that he'd never ever think of Ron having sex with anyone again, especially not with any of his brothers.  
This wasn't normal.  
He shouldn't have dreams like that!  
He shouldn't be this effected by dreams about his friends if they weren't a bout them dying!

When he came back in the room and looked down on Ginny, moonlight caressing her bare body, he felt it was impossible to lay down next to her.  
He'd been careless to have sex with her while thinking of anyone else but her.  
It was stupid to think she wouldn't be hurt if she knew his thoughts.  
She deserved better.  
Ron and and her.  
They both deserved better.  
Harry had made his decision.  
For normality and for Ginny.  
He should stop trying to hurt Ron just to feel the intensity of his feelings in his gaze and he should try his hardest to make Ginny happy.  
He didn't know why the thought hurt him so much.  
Hastily he left the room, fled down the stairs following the familiar sound of Ron's snoring.

Ron was sharing his room with Charlie, whose sleeping sounds were easily rivalling the loudness of his little brother's.  
Both were peacefully lying in starfish position in their beds at opposite sides of the room.  
Harry felt himself calm down, when he saw Ron sleeping alone and without harm in his own bed.  
He sat down on the edge of the bed and watched him sleep for a while.  
He promised himself to be a better friend from now on.

Charlie asked at breakfast the next why he'd been in their room.  
Harry felt his face become red and hot while he was teased by his brother-in-laws.  
"Had a bad dream and went to check on Ron." he mumbled embarrassed avoiding to look at everyone, especially Ron.  
Luckily the focus of the Weasley brothers' teasing changing to Percy when he and Audrey entered the room.  
Harry couldn't stop himself from frowning and hurried to get the memories of the dream in the night before out of his thoughts, before he'd started thinking too seriously about it.  
He felt Ginny lean against his shoulder and turned his head towards her to smile at her.  
She was beautiful with her big, brown eyes, the delicate nose and the cute little freckled sprinkled all over her face, like a stars on a clear sky.  
He kissed her and squashed the thought of her eyes having the wrong colour, her face being tpo soft.  
This was his wife.  
His beautiful, brilliant little woman.  
She was perfect the way she was.  
He'd better love her like she deserved it or die trying.

The next years were rocky.  
The morning after their wedding was just the beginning of him feeling grateful and miserable at the same time.  
It reminded him a bit of the devil's snare back in his first year in Hogwarts .the more he tried to get himself out of constant feeling of being held in place somewhere he didn't belong, the more he tried to find a way to get himself comfortable in their relationship, the more he felt strangled.  
This time there was no Hermione though, to tell him how he could save himself.  
Despite his best resolves it was still difficult for him to initiate affection or anything too close to sex.  
He went along with it when Ginny started and he enjoyed it alright, but he just didn't feel the urge to ask her.  
He didn't want her to feel unloved.  
Started to talk more.  
About her eyes or her hair, how nice her body felt, everything to remind himself that he should think of his wife, to stop thinking about hurt blue eyes.  
He hated this.

He felt almost relieved when he had missions that made it necessary to say away over night.  
Happy about a calm night of sleep without feeling guilty.  
Having Ron as his partner by his side, the thrill that came with hunting criminal and the blind understanding of the two...the efficiency.  
Sleeping in the same tent or the same dingy hotel room, listening to Ron's snoring and sleeping through the night without nightmares for a change.  
After these kind of missions he was able to deal better with Ginny.  
After one of these missions his first son was conceived.

James Sirius Potter was born on a rainy day in spring.  
Like all children of the Weasley family he was born at home.  
Ron, his mother and a healer had come to help with the birth and between Molly Weasley and the healer helping Ginny get through the contractions and Ron whirling around kitchen and labour room to bring everything the women needed, Harry felt very useless.  
He sat on a chair, helplessly trying to support Ginny, who was squatting on the linen-covered floor, sweating like an ogre and cursing under her breath.  
It was one of the scariest things he'd ever experienced and it was over surprisingly fast.  
The healer mumbled something about the birth of Ginny's child being as easy as her own and she put the little boy in Ron's arms, who gently towelled him dry and cradled the crying newborn, while the women helped Ginny with the afterbirth.  
Ron nodded Harry to followed him and he did after a quick questioning look on his wife.  
Harry was not sure how to deal with such a small child.  
It didn't look like any child he knew either.

James wasn't a chubby, cute baby at all.  
He was scrawny, had a red head from all the screaming, a pretty big nose for a baby and disproportionally long feet.  
Le looked like you crossed a gnome with a human, but it a very lovable way.  
Harry asked himself if he'd looked like that too.  
He'd also been pretty skinny as a child, but he'd always thought to was because he'd not been happy with the Dursleys.  
Harry was a bit hesitant to touch James, scared to break the tiny limps.  
"cheeky little frog, he is." mumbled Ron, and he seemed almost as proud and close to tears as Harry, when he helped his friend to put some cloths on the tiny human.  
Having his son in his arms for the first time, he didn't even think about being disappointed that the hair was black like his and not red, like he always dreamed.  
He was so happy that he almost waited for something bad to happen to level it out.  
The universe, or whatever was in charge for his fate, had never failed to rain on his parade when he was threatening to be too happy.

Almost two year later, in the middle of a especially nasty fight between him and Ginny, who considered him a shitty dad (which he was, but it was also difficult to measure up against Mr. Weasley, who'd much more practise or Bill, who was just a natural at caring for children), her water broke and Harry hurried to call Mrs Weasley and the healer.  
He didn't inform Ron, but when he came back into the bedroom, where Ginny was lying on the bed, wheezing and cussing like a Leprechaun, his friend was next to his sister anyway.  
Ron seemed to have some kind of sixth sense when it came to his younger sister.  
They were close in a way that made Harry way too jealous and he'd yet to figure out who of the two he was more jealous of.  
Little Jamie toddled in the room asking why his Mum was having an "ouchie" and trying to climb on the bed to comfort her, but Harry hurried taking his resisting offspring out of the room.  
Even though neither Mrs. Weasley nor Ginny had said anything about it, he doubted that is was good for a sibling relationship when they older one got to see how much in pain the mother was when she was giving birth to the younger one.  
He also was happy to have an excuse to not be there at Ginny's side and feeling useless again.  
He sat on the sofa in the living room, hugging the his little scrawny Jamiekins and asking himself why he'd gotten Ginny pregnant again.  
It wasn't he didn't what to have a second child...but their marriage was difficult enough with harry being away too much, Ginny being too unhappy to be cooped up with the children.  
They'd just started to talk about her restarting her career as a chaser for the Harpies when they'd found out she was pregnant again.  
The biggest reason for her not to become a mother again though, was that he hated seeing, hearing and knowing that she was in pain and he couldn't do anything about it.  
He was such an arse for letting her go through this shite again.

If James was scrawny, Albus had a very healthy ball shape. Everything about his second son was soft and round and cuddly and compared to his adventurous older brother, Albus was positively huggable.  
Mrs Weasley was adamant that he looked like a "true Prewett"...something Harry couldn't agree on.  
Albus had the same black hair and green almond-shaped eyes as him and he had a certain shyness around people that Harry knew from himself.  
While James clearly had his build, Albus had inherited more of his father, in Harry's opinion.  
With getting older Jamie became more and more like a black-haired version of the twins, or the few things he knew about his father.  
He wasn't a bad child, but he could be cruel and enjoyed making fun of his younger brother.  
Harry had a hard time relating to him.  
Harry tried hard to spend time at home and the relationship started actually get better when Ginny started to play Quidditch again and the children spend more time in the care of Kreacher, who was thrilled to have kids to care for.  
Harry would have never thought that the same grumpy old house-elf could be so gentle and patient when it came to small children.  
Ron was also around often.  
He let James fly with him on the broom, making the little boy scream happily and took the boys with him to the Burrow or to one of his brothers, to give Ginny and Harry a bit of time without the children.

Ginny's and his marriage got difficult when they spend too much time with each other.  
This was one of the reasons Harry started to work outside more and more, after Albus's first birthday.  
It made his feet itch when he was too long cooped up inside this damn house, trying his damn hardest to be a good husband and father and failing miserably.  
He just wasn't good that this family-thing.  
He cared for his boys and he loved Ginny, but he'd been caring just for himself so long that it was really difficult for him to plan the day for more people than himself.  
Ginny wasn't good at it too, so they usually ended up at one of other Weasley households, when they spend to much time alone together.  
Preferably the Burrow.

At some point in their marriage, Harry had to admit to himself that, as much as he loved Ginny, he didn't really want to have sex with her.  
He just didn't think much about sex at all.  
Something which Ginny started to notice and nag him about.  
He felt guilty for making her feel unwanted, because he still thought she was a beautiful and smelled nice, but he just couldn't bring himself to want to have sex with her enough to initiate interaction like that...and Ginny started to get sick of being the active one all the time.  
Harry had to admit that he'll probably have to update his rules "try to be as normal as possible" instead of "be normal", because there's no way a normal husband should hide at work because his wife wanted to have "alone time" with him.  
He never had liked people being close to him anyway.  
Perhaps he just wasn't so interested in sex at all.  
When they had sex, he forced himself to sound like he was into it. He'd talk a lot, tell Ginny how beautiful she was and made sure to always come with her names on his lips.  
It wasn't nice anymore though. He didn't enjoy it.  
He loved sitting next to her on the couch, with her shoulder touching his and talking with her about her training, about Quidditch. He greatly enjoyed looking at her when she was fired up, spending time with her and brushing her hair out of her face, but sex with Ginny was like a chore.

Being at work a lot, meant he'd see more of Ron too, which meant he stopped thinking about how messed up his family life was, and let himself being washed away by what ever case they were working on. Ron by his side, loyal and steady and saying the right thing to make him laugh when he started to brood.  
He knew that Ron was worried about him and and Ginny and that was one of the reasons why Ron was around them so much trying to care for them and the children and support them, was not that he loved the children so much, it was because he loved Harry and his sister and he couldn't stand seeing them unhappy.

A few days after James' 4th birthday Ginny decided she had enough and Harry found himself been thrown out of his own house.  
He spend the first night at work, sleeping at his desk then he got himself an apartment in the commuter belt of London, and since he was a good Auror and slowly got as paranoid as Mad Eye Moody, he spend the next weekend making the house untraceable, riddle it with illusionary charms and traps until he was sure the house was one of the most secure places in Britain.  
He didn't tell anyone about his little safehouse.

He felt it was probably for the best to stay a bit away from the Weasleys for now, until Ginny's brothers calmed down enough to not hex Harry's nuggets off when they saw him.  
He also had a hard time deciding how to explain the breakup to the boys.  
When he went to the Grimmauld Place a week later to pick up some stuff, the house was empty and Kreacher was exceptionally grumpy when he informed him that Ginny had moved back to the Burrow with the children.  
Harry asked Kreacher to keep an eye on them.  
Something Kreacher happily agreed to do.  
He loved the Potter boys. Once, while he was watching them eat breakfast, he had said that they reminded home of Sirius and Regulus, the other pair of brothers he helped to raise.

Ron visited the Burrow almost daily, to spend time with his godson, and Albus and support Ginny.  
Harry was incredibly grateful that his friend took such great care of the family he left behind, even though he sometimes felt a bit jealous when Ron left work early and hurried to the fireplace to floo to the Burrow.

He found himself visiting Hermione's grave more often.  
Removing leaves and weed and tending the flowers wasn't necessarily needed, since there were charms for that, but it helped to calm Harry down and make him think about things.

Like Ron for example.

Who'd never even once introduced him to a boyfriend, even though Harry was sure there were tons of men willing to spent some time between the sheets with his best friend.  
Ron wasn't an ugly guy.  
Actually he was pretty good looking with his broad shoulders and back, the slim waist, his big, flexible hands and the long legs. Ron's personality was beautiful too.  
Caring, loyal, funny, fast-thinking, adventurous...the number of adjectives were long and with every new one he got more unwilling to allow some random guy to occupy Ron's thoughts.  
The more he thought about this when he was alone, the more he felt the urge to think about it too when he was with Ron and every co-worker, every random guy walking into the Auror-Department and tallking to Ron was distrustfully eyed by him.  
Especially when they managed to make Ron laugh.  
He told himself that one day there'd be a guy who was okay enough for Ron to date, but at deep down he knew he'd never trust anyone except Hermione with Ron. And Hermione was gone.  
Well...he trusted himself...mostly...but it wasn't like he could ever be like that to Ron.  
He was _normal_.  
He wasn't gay.  
He just wasn't.

Well except that one evening, where he bolloxed upthings majorly.  
That may have been a little bit gay.  
He had decided to push the responsibility for his actions on the tons of painkiller potions he took after a little bit of rough housing with a bunch of idiots leaving Harry's intestines spilling out and Ron had to side-along him to St. Mungos.

They had been sitting on the couch, both drinking their second beer and feeling comfortably tired and content that the got the job done.  
Harry had mustered Ron again, thinking about how much he _not_ wanted some stupid random guy take away attention away from him and before he could think again his lips were on Ron's and he found himself dumbfounded over his own action.  
He was a bloody stubborn Gryffindor though and kissing Ron felt surprisingly great, so he didn't even think about stopping.  
It felt even better when he noticed that Ron gave up resisting and pressed eagerly against him.  
Watching Ron through the half-closed veil of his eyelashes, desperately wanting the eyes still full of astonishment that something like this happened to him, was unexpectedly exciting.  
If Ron being jealous carried him through the nights with Ginny, he felt that Ron actually getting what he wanted would be burned on the inside of his eyes for the rest of his life.  
This was better than with Ginny.  
It felt good.  
It didn't feel awkward at all.  
It felt so bloody right that Harry wanted to glue Ron's hands, Ron's eyes to his skin so he'd never ever be without it.  
It was the first time in his life that he didn't remember what he'd said or done when it was over.

The realisation came with the sudden coldness of Ron bringing distance between them.  
Ron's face was grey and he bit his lips to keep himself quiet.  
Ron was never quiet.  
Even when he was asleep he was loud and full of life!  
Harry watched his friend pointing is wand at his crotch and mumbling something that instantly made the tent in his trousers disappear.  
While Ron charmed Harry, the couch and the floor clean from spilled beer and their activity, he didn't even look at Harry.  
Harry didn't know what to say.  
He just knew that he really _really_ messed up.  
After rummaging around in the kitchen Ron came back in the living room and passed Harry a little phial with sleeping draught.  
"Let's just...Harry, it was a long day. Just go sleep." Ron croaked when he finally spoke to Harry, still avoiding look him in the face.  
Harry wasn't exactly the most empathic person but even he could see that he'd hurt Ron a lot.  
He took the potion and felt the effect kick in immediately and the room became black and quiet.  
He was out cold because he could say sorry.

Life following that event was terrible.  
Ron didn't talk to him , didn't even _look_ at him and when he talked to others, he sounded like one of the creepy Muggle robots, that Audrey talked about. There was no life in Ron's voice anymore, which was just _wrong_!  
Ron had always been full of emotions...sometimes there was even a too much of emotions.  
Seeing him so broken and knowing that it was his fault, that Harry was to blame for making one of the most important people in his life sad, was barely bearable.  
They tried to working together, but after Harry had to pick up a boneless Ron-blob after making a bloody rookie mistake and bring him to , he found the desk next to him empty the next morning.  
Ron had been moved to one of the backline units.  
Which was good, since it meant he was much safer, but it was also bad, because he was not with Harry and Harry wasn't able to function properly without Ron by his side.  
He was too used to have someone picking up unsaid cues and commands that working with the other Aurors, even though they weren't bad at their job, just didn't work.  
His life didn't work without Ron.  
He spend too much time depending on his friend to live without Ron's support.  
And now he had to learn being self-sufficient again.

After being in Hogwarts as part of the Golden Trio.  
After being a family father with a wife and children around him.  
He was back to square one.  
It felt much more lonely now than back in his childhood though, since he knew how it felt to have family and friends to rely on.  
He was truly alone.

Watching Ron and being reminded how bad he had damaged their friendship was to painful so Harry made sure that he was far away from the family, from Ron and tried to learn being strong without them again.  
Harry had barely any memories when it came to the next months.  
He spend about a month in dingy hotel rooms,following his target subject that at some point he was so sick of poly juice that he started to think about alternative methods to keep himself hidden.  
His thoughts ended with breaking in the library of the International Magical University in Porto and getting as much books about Animagi as possible.  
When he finally managed to transform for the first time, he was surprised that he wasn't a stag, like his Pratronus suggested.  
He was happy to learn that the form of his Animagus was a dark marten.  
The compact size was practical on his hunt. Made it practical to hunt, made it easy to hide in dark spaces.  
He found himself choosing the Animagus form more and more often, not only to hide, but because his thoughts became easier and less confusing when he wasn't in his human form.  
Being an animal made the pain of missing his children, Ginny and Ron a bit less painful.  
He leaned something new though.  
Animals don't care if their behaviour is according to the norm.  
they don't care if they're normal.  
They're just lead by instincts.  
Harry allowed himself think about adjusting his rules.  
When he was an animal didn't care about being normal anymore.  
He just wanted the ones , he cared about to be with him.  
It's a question of survival and the next weeks he fights to get back to what he needs.

It's spring in Masuria when he finally has enough evidence to close in and hand the group of dark wizard over to the officials in Warsaw.  
It needs another two days until he had complied to all formalities and was free to go home.  
He didn't wait another minute, almost running to get the next port key to England.  
The first place he apparated, after he stepped on British soil again, was the Burrow.  
It was already late and he didn't want to alarm the house or cause drama with Ginny, so he changed in his animagus form and slipped through an open window into the house.  
It was already dark and quiet in the house and he started to get a bit less careful when weaseled upstairs to the children's room.  
The next moment he felt himself go stiff under a _Stupefy_.  
He's a first class Auror and of all the places, he got actually hit by a curse in the house of his In-Laws.  
Before he could react he felt being forced in his human form back.

"Merlin! Harry!" whispered Charlie and Harry felt the _Stupefy_ being lifted so that he could turn around and look in the face of the second oldest Weasley brother.  
In the pale light of the moon Charlie's face looked almost creepily white, even though he was the Weasley with the most tanned skin.  
"What are you doing here?"

Harry could feel the defiant wrinkle about his nose grow deeper.  
"Am I not allowed to look after my children from time to time? Just want to check if they're okay..." he got quieter when he saw Charlie lift his hand and waved him to follow him down in the kitchen.  
"You are really bad at faking the behaviour of a European pine marten, Harry."  
muttered Charlie.  
"A wild animal like this would never got upstairs in a house without turning around and checking its surroundings every two steps."  
Harry rolled his eyes and started to grin.  
"Charlie! I'm not a animal behaviourist." He grunted slightly exasperated "I'm an Auror. I do what I can to get the job done and the majority of criminals are not interested in learning about animal behaviour anyway."  
It wasn't that he didn't like talking with Charlie. The second oldest of his Brothers-in-law was a nice guy and he was fun to be with.  
But it was far past midnight, he was basically a gigantic pile of mud and dirt, he hadn't have the possible to shower in weeks and he just wanted to check on the people he cared about before he would try to bring himself back into a half-way human form and get some sleep.  
"Look, Charlie...i just want to check on the boys and Ginny and I'm off...I'm really tired..." he trailed of and rubbed his face.  
"You look like shit." he was informed and a second later there was mug of tea on the table in front of him.  
"since when are you back in Britain."  
Charlie sat across of him, obviously not willing to let him go so fast.  
Harry looked up to the kitchen clock and tried to remember when he'd taken the port key in Warsaw before answering.  
"About 10 minutes." he suppressed a yawn.  
"And you thought it was a good time to show some interest in your children after leaving them alone for almost half a year."  
Harry sighed.  
He knew he was not the best father and his enthusiasm for his job took the bit of Daddy-skills with him ever had. Trying to catch bad guys was the only thing he knew how to spend his live and be of use for the ones he cared for.  
"What should I do? Give up my cover and get killed or worse...let those bastards get away and continue to kidnap muggleborn children? Well...that would be some great way to be a good father." he grumbled.  
"Just because I shite at this family-thing doesn't mean that I don't care about my family."

He actually had a look at his children later.  
The boys were sleeping in separate bedrooms, which didn't surprise Harry.  
Jamie and Al had never been great at playing nice with each other. Jamie enjoyed nothing more than playing prank to his younger brother and annoying him in the most effective way and Al was not bad at playing the victim role and turn the adults against his brother.  
Sometimes Harry thought, I he'd been growing up with parents that loved him no matter how hard life was, if he'd have been a similar scallywag as Jamie as a child.  
Someone who liked pranks and making people laugh and didn't need to care for what people thought of him.  
He admired this carefreeness about his oldest son even if he sometimes felt like shaking some sense in him.  
With a short nod at Charlie and the request to keep quiet about his nocturnal visit, he apparated away to Ron's apartment in London.

Seeing Ron again is like starting to breath again after a long time under water.  
Harry didn't understand how he could ever be in Ron's present and ignore how bloody gorgeous his best mate was.  
With red bed hair, the arms of his pyjama rolled up showing pale shimmering scars on his biceps...  
He must have been blind for the majority of his life.  
Ron's summer-blue eyes changed from anger about the late disturbance to surprise then his mouth grew wide in a grin and his whole body seems to radiate joy.  
Harry feels himself mirroring the grin.  
He wanted to touch Ron.  
It was like his decision to try to be himself instead of "normal", to change the rules, finally made something inside him crack open and release the wish to have body contact, that he'd missed all that time when he was with Ginny.  
"Get in the shower, I'll get you some food, mate."  
Ron's voice was a bit hoarse from sleep and the grin was still plastered on his face when he pushed a pile of changing cloths in his arms and him through the door of the bathroom.  
Harry smiled fondly at the closed door.  
Ron still knew exactly what he needed.  
Perhaps he should tell Ron about himself, about the rules...Ron was his friend from the moment they met, he could trust him that he'd at least try to understand.  
When he left the bathroom, wearing jeans and a shirt that was far too long for him, because Ron was ridiculously tall, he was cleaner than he'd been in months.  
It felt good to use real water instead of cleaning charms...he had never been good at these kind of charms anyway.  
His content smile vanished from his face, when he heard a stranger talking in the kitchen.  
Ron wasn't alone.  
Ron, who was his, his, _his_ , was not alone.  
He had someone with him that Harry didn't know.

A roaring protectiveness bubbled up inside him, and he carefully came closer.  
Almost unconsciously his movement got more intent when he entered the kitchen, ready take down an opponent...but this was not a mission and he felt terrible out of place when he saw this man standing way to close to Ron for his liking.  
He hated the way the guy leaned into Ron when he turned around to look at him and how normal it seemed for Ron to have his hand on the bloke's hip.  
Harry felt like punching him, when he whispered in Ron's ear, smiling at him like the redhead belonged to him, before going out of the room.  
Harry wasn't able to process what the young man said before he made his exit, so loud boiled the anger in his ears.

Before he could think he was in Ron's personal space and pushed him backwards against the kitchen counter.  
While he did so, he already knew that he acting like a prat. It was like he watched himself, whispering, purposefully hurting Ron, without being able to interfere.  
He was totally lost in the rush of anger, jealousy, ownership...

The next moment he felt the impact of Ron's fists against his ribcage, when he was thrown backwards and hitting the wall at the other side with an ugly sound.  
He had a shred of Ron's collar in his balled fist and there was a deep red streak on the pale skin of the redhead's neck, where the fabric had been ripped by the force of Harry's weight being pushed away.  
Ron was angry.  
He was towering over him, caging Harry between his arms that leaned against the tiles at both side of Harry's head.

"Bloody Hell, Harry! We're grown men! You've got kids that go to Hogwarts in a couple of years! With my little sister, if I may remind you! You know since almost six years that I'm that way!" he feels the burn on his neck caused by the ripping of his collar. "You didn't expect me to stay a bloody virgin for the rest of my life!"  
Harry looked up in the angry face.  
Ron was fuming.  
"Why do you even care, who I share my bed with?! We're FRIENDS!"  
Harry understood something very important that moment.  
That what hew really wanted, if the rules wouldn't count, was be the one Ron relied on. He wanted to be the most important person in Ron's life.  
He never wanted to be normal for Ron.  
He wanted to be special.  
The rules didn't help him anymore.  
The ykept something from him and he noticed to late that he needed to change them, to fight against them.  
"Who I bugger...doesn't change anything about...us!"  
Harry closed his eyes, trying not to think of Ron doing naked stuff with other blokes...other blokes than him...because he was too blind, too slow, too stupid and now it was too late.  
Since Ron was Ginny's brother.  
Ron was so bloody loyal, one of the things Harry liked the most about on his friend! His loyalty wouldn't make it possible for him to even try to make a pass at his sister's husband.  
Ron's loyalty towards his family was older and deeper than anything between him and Harry.  
He had to admit defeat.  
He sighed and leaned again Ron's shoulder, feeling him instantly relax and the anger subside under his closeness.  
Ron smelled like home, like safety. It was utterly unfair that this now belonged to someone else.  
That someone else was the most special, the most important...because Harry had been to scared to even admit to himself that he wanted to have that position.  
He felt Ron's chest heave against his own and it seemed natural to put his arms around his torso and pull him closer.  
Ron shakily let out some air and shifted from his hand on the elbows to keep himself steady against the wall. So close.  
Having any other person close to him had always felt wrong, like they were overpowering him and held him down. But with Ron, now that he accepted that the rules will never be right...being close to him felt nice and safe.  
He nervously licked his lips, scared to say something wrong.

"I missed you so fucking much."  
it tore out of him like blood from a fresh wound he felt himself clinging to the fabric of Ron's pyjama.  
"I needed you with me and you weren't there, because you didn't want to be with me anymore, because..."  
reminding how their situation was before he'd been sent to his mission made him swallow hard.  
"...everything was...weird." he whispered, surprised how hollow his voice sounded.  
Being ignored by Ron, not being the centre of his attention, was terrible.  
"While I was...doing my business... I was thinking that you'd wait and be worried and when I come back we'd just talk about it, go get drunk and be buddies again..."  
Ron's body pressed against his made him more secure, the words bubbled out of him and he would be surprised if his eyes were wet by now.  
"...and then I come back and there this...this arsehole clinging to you, that I don't even know...and you look so happy without me."  
he sounded more bitter than he wanted to. His muscled cramped slightly in the urge to keep Ron close.  
He struggled to find the right words to make his friend understand how bloody important he was.

"You were the first person that saw me as just who I am, and you said it's okay who I am."  
he could feel Ron lean into him, relaxing against him, his breath ghosting through his damp hair and skin.  
"I can't give you to anyone else!  
I need your eyes to stay on me!  
I can't accept you looking like that at any other person!"  
This was the first time he ever allowed himself to tell another person that he wanted to be special.  
He didn't want to fade into the background of all the persons around them.  
He didn't want to sneak around unseen and safe.  
He didn't want to be normal anymore.  
He was breaking the rules.  
The rush of adrenaline that came with outrageous action left him breathless.  
He'd happily accept being unsafe, if it meant that he stayed special, important and irreplaceable in Ron's eyes.

Harry bumped the back of his head against the tiles when he leaned back to look in Ron's face.  
This was important to him.  
He wanted Ron to understand...  
"I'm selfish. I know I'm...unreasonable... this is not _normal_... I shouldn't be jealous... I shouldn't act like a bloody idiot...but I can't hand you over...I have to stay your most important..."  
he had always been uncomfortable when he was the centre of attention, but being the focus of Ron's attention felt good, healthy...like it should be like that.  
Ron stared on his lips while he was talking.  
His eyes were gentle...wanting.

Silence.

Harry closed his eyes for a moment.  
Basically he'd justvomited all his emotions, insecurities and wishes on Ron's feet and now he felt empty...unsure what to do.  
The quaffle was on Ron's side of the pitch. It was his move now.  
He felt Ron's breath on his face, the redhead must be leaning closer and it seemed natural to lift his head just a little bit to give him better access.  
Adrenaline was pumping through his veins, memories of him kissing Ron and both of them on that ruddy couch flashed through his mind.  
Ron would kiss him, right?  
He'd said he loved him!  
He'd accept him even if he wasn't normal...

The abrupt push against his chest and the coldness of the loss of body contact were more of a shock than he was willing to admit.  
He felt like he was suddenly pushed back into the reality of the world after very exhausting but not necessarily bad dream.  
In the real world though, the rules were still intact.  
He still had to obey them.  
The first breaths burned in his chest.  
Desperately in need for something to hold on his eyes search Ron's back, observing him removing the bag from the teapot and putting salty scones on a plate.  
Harry's barely able to understand what he's saying... his voice is quiet and croaking with emotions.  
He learned a few things though.  
While Ron loved him, he'd never even try to have anything else but friendship with him.  
Not only because he was his sister's ex-husband, but also because he was Harry.  
Harry, the hero.  
Harry, the one Ron had tried so desperately to support.  
"Don't make it so hard for both of us, Harry. We're close. You are important. But you are not interested in me or any other man like that."  
Harry Potter was not allowed to deviate from the norm.  
"You're not gay."

For a moment he wanted to take the stupid mug of hot tea and throw it against the wall.  
He wanted to shake Ron to make him see...that this wasn't him.  
That the person that Ron had put behind "do not touch"-bars on a stupid pedestal wasn't him.  
He wanted Ron to see _him_! Ron should see him, even if he wasn't normal even if he wasn't a bloody war hero...he should see him being weak and just wanting to be close to him.  
...but he gave up after looking into Ron's eyes that were heavily warded against every thought, that would make Harry seem available for him.  
Everything that could threaten to make him disloyal to his family, his sister or Harry.  
There was nothing he could do.  
He gave up.  
There was no way to break the rules.  
He wouldn't question his role anymore, he'd try his best to be normal, to obey the rules.

It was easy for him to fall back into the friendly conversations with Ron...act like a best mate should, was something he'd done long enough.  
And while he was happy that Ron was his friend again, that he hadn't lost him, it still felt wrong.  
Like wearing clothing that were to big for you and you're tangling yourself more and more in them the more you tried to move.

Harry wasn't happy about Ron's relationship with the young man, that turned up as John.  
He was years younger than them, too young to be involved in the war, and Harry didn't trust him.  
Well...mostly it wasn't a trust problem, it was that he was so fucking jealous he was sure he'd turn green one day.  
He was jealous that John was allowed to live with Ron, to touch Ron, to go on missions with Ron, while he'd sit there on desk duty or went to stupid missions with other Aurors.  
He missed Ron at his side at work.  
It was so much easier if you have a tactician like Ron with you than when you've got to plan every manoeuvre on your on then then find a way to explain it to your partners.  
He hated this.

He made effort to obey the rules.  
Tried to be a better dad, but he wasn't sure if he did such a great job.  
Dealing with the boys was difficult.  
He loved them, but he was pants at this childcare thing.  
Luckily Ron was still around. Supportive, loyal and instinctively finding the words to make the boys happily listen to him.  
Ron would have been a great father.  
He reminded him a lot on Mr. Weasley.  
Self-confident, but never over-protective or despotic.

It wasn't really his intention to get together with Ginny again.  
It just happened.  
It was her idea and she was the one asked him to move into the apartment with her and the children.  
Harry was happy to be with them again.  
He loved the boys, he loved seeing them in the morning and sneaking in their room to make sure they were healthy, safe and asleep.  
He liked to listen to their breathing, deep and relaxed, without any nightmares that had plagued him as long as he can remember.  
Being with Ginny was nice.  
He liked talking to her, seeing her smile...he was really grateful.  
It still felt wrong to touch her though.  
Knowing why it felt wrong didn't make it any less terrible.  
He felt guilty for bring them in such a situation again, but he felt he owed it to her to try his best to make her happy.

Spending more time with Ginny and the boys and trying hard to be home early so that they cold have dinner together meant that he often didn't get see Ron for days.  
Ron looked as unhappy as always, when Harry told him he moved in with Ginny again and he looked down Harry's hand with the fine golden circlet at his promise finger.  
Ron's silvery lashes fluttered closed in defeat and when he opened his eyes his eyes the corners of his eyes wrinkled in a sad smile.  
"Congrats, mate." he'd said but it sounded more like he wanted to bash Harry's head against the wall behind him.  
Shortly after that Ron stopped being around when Harry was there.  
Harry got nervous after he noticed hat John, Ron's partner, was on desk duty or joining other teams.  
He wanted to ask questions...he really wanted...  
but the rules were still intact.  
Rule number 1b was "Don't ask questions"...so he didn't.

He did sneak into Ron's apartment though.  
Finding out that food in the magical icebox had already expired several weeks ago and everything looked like Ron weren't around for a long time.  
He felt himself panic then, tried to talk with Percy and Fred to find out if they had heard of Ron...  
they hadn't.  
Ron was gone.  
Harry tried to search in the file archive of the Aurors Department, but there was no info...just that Ron was on a mission.  
Alone.  
Without anyone else.  
For weeks.  
This was just not wrong.

Ginny seemed out of sorts too.  
She felt sick a lot and Harry spend nights with a crying Ginny in his arms.  
Ginny missed Ron.  
Ron was the one that supported her when it came to managing her life or dealing with the children.  
He was the one Ginny relied on the most.  
She could live with Harry being away for a while, but having her closest brother not around was almost unbearable for her.

The day Ginny told him she was pregnant again, they both cried.  
As much as he loved his sons and as much as he needed Ginny in his life...having another baby when they were both so vulnerable seemed too much.  
That morning Harry entered the Auror Headquarters very early morning.  
He was so exhausted that he thought for a moment Ron, kissing the living daylight out of his partner John in the middle of the office, was a illusion.  
Ron was sitting at his desk, his boyfriend in his lap and Harry felt so strong reminded of Lavender back in school that he needed to leave the room to calm himself down.  
Different than Hermione back then, he had no right to be jealous...or act on his jealousy.  
He was so jealous and exhausted and happy and terribly overwhelmed.

It was the first time in years he visited Hermione's grave.  
It looked surprisingly peaceful and even beautiful for the grave of a teenager.  
He missed her.  
Hermione would have known what to do.

Telling the family that Ginny is pregnant again is a difficult task.  
He knows that Ginny's family...at least her brothers, don't really support this "Harry and Ginny are together again"-thing.  
If He were one of them he'd think the same...he knows he's not the best husband and father and while he tries hard, he knows Ginny could do much better.  
Ginny should have fallen in love with a nice guy, not am insensitive prat like him.  
Ginny is the one blurting the information out, the sound of guilt in her voice not being completely eliminated.  
They both know it's not the best moment to have another child.  
Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Ron getting on his feet and storming out of the house.  
John followed him with his eyes, but he didn't follow him outside.  
Harry was reminded of this one evening two years after the war, when Fred and Angelina had pronounced their pregnancy.  
He felt Ginny gripping on his hand and the voices of her brothers wash over him...He knew he should be outside with Ron now, but he couldn't leave Ginny alone either.  
Percy was the one that took his place to find out what was wrong with Ron.

The evening became only weirder.  
There was loads of alcohol involved and at some time, after Charlie "lost" to Bill's oldest daughter Victoire in arm wrestling it turned into a crazy contest between the other brother s to try and win against Charlie...which was clearly out of question, since the second oldest was ridiculously strong and additionally had the technique to keep even a dragon in check if he had to.  
There was no way any of his brother could win against Charlie, if he didn't let them...which he never would have...Harry assumed that it was a sibling thing.

Harry saw first Mr Weasley falling asleep on the the couch and a little while later Mrs Weasley gathered the children to bring them to bed.  
Harry watched fondly how his sons were kissed on the cheek by Ginny and he ruffled his boys' pitch-black hair.  
They both padded to Ron to get a night-kiss on the forehead obviously lingering to see if Uncle Bill would win against Uncle Charlie, but Mrs Weasley was without mercy and so the colourful group of children made more or less willing their way up the stairs.  
John followed them.  
He seemed oddly distant from Ron, and Harry was a bit ashamed that he was so happy about it.  
He hurried to put his attention back to Ginny again.

Ginny next to him cheered her brother on and Harry felt like watching Quidditch games with her...she was even more involved in the game than him.  
It reminded him again why he loved her.  
She was just so unbelievable beautiful when she was happy.  
She even started to clap her hands in excitement when Ron got up up from the couch across the room and Harry saw George giving him a encouraging pat on the butt while Ron took of his jumper and made his way to living room table.  
Harry knew he'd win before they even started.  
The way Ron placed his feet and positioned him in front of his side of the table was much more intelligent than the way Fred did it.  
His eyes got drawn to the way the wide t-shirt (since when did Ron wear wide clothing like that?) bunched up when he hunched over the table.  
There was something really wrong in the way he moved.  
Ron was never this careful...most of the time he were almost violent, disrespectful with his own body.  
He didn't care if he got hurt of it got the job done.

Now he was very cautious though, not leaning with his torso against the edge while he easily won against Fred and slammed his older brother's arm on the table top.  
He grinned smugly while Fred accused him that he had cheating.  
Harry heard himself say something about Ron being an Auror and it being part of the job...he was too concentrated on Ron acting so suspiciously un-ron-like to really care about his own words.  
There was something incredibly wrong.  
Fred tried to jump over the table to rough-house with Ron a bit, but Percy of all people manoeuvred himself between them clumsily and unexpectedly serious about protecting Ron from Fred.

Harry felt like having a sneak peak into the Weasley's childhood looking at the laughter dying and everyone staring at Ron as if they knew that something was wrong with Ron.  
Harry's eyes glided about his best mate, still confused by the weird lose clothing and the way he was holding himself more careful...like he thought of himself as something precious.  
"You sure got chubby, Ron." he heard Ginny say silently beside him and followed her eyes to the centre of Ron's body.  
"Pff~ not more chubby than you." he muttered disgruntled and hurried to hide body under the lose, maroon-coloured layer of the knitted jumper again.  
"Yeah, but I am pregnant."  
"So?"  
There's silence for a few seconds.

"Ron..." muttered George frowning..."I hate to break the news for you , but no matter how much of a nancy you are, you're still a guy. You are missing certain body parts to become pregnant."  
Ron mirrored his frown.  
"George..."..he mumbled similar serious but the corners of his eyes curled into an amused smile "I hate to break the news, but I've done far worse than taking polyjuice and seducing my target to get the job done."  
the next moment Mr Weasley was torn from his sleep by Bill losing control of his magic and breaking the windows in a fit of raw fury.  
"How _dare_ they!" he thundered and the air was flickering around him.  
"How _dare_ they to...I fucking kill this fucking..." a wave of expletives exploded from his mouth Harry saw Ginny hurrying to Ron's side and hiding her face in his chest and Charlie and Mr Weasley jumping on both sides of Bill to keep him from apparating away to make his threat reality.  
The eyes of both twins were almost jumping out of their skull and they seemed like they were already plotting something to the head of the Auror department pay for sending to a mission like that.  
They sat closer together than Harry had seen them in years and George had one hand calming on Fred's shoulder.  
Harry turned away from Bill raging against the hold of his brother and father and turned to Percy you quietly had started to repair the windows and glasses.  
Percy had known about this.  
Ron had told Percy but he had kept it from him.  
The realisation came so sudden that it was like he had been thrown in the icy water of a lake.  
Ron was more willing to get support from _Percy_ than from his best mate.

"Guys!"

Ron's voice wasn't loud but it was booming with the self-assuredness that he knew from work.  
Harry saw Bill stopping to struggle and everyone's attention concentrating on the youngest Weasley brother.  
Ron seemed even taller than usual and Ginny, safely tucked in one of his long arms, seemed even smaller.  
"If Charlie was hurt by Dragons, if Fred or George got hurt in the laboratory, if Bill was hit by a curse, if Ginny fell from a broom during a match...these are risks you agreed to when you've chosen your jobs. I'm an Auror. It comes with the job. High pay, high risk."

Harry hated himself that he'd pulled Ron into a job like that.  
Robards gave different jobs to Ron, that he gave Harry or other Aurors.  
Ron's missions often were subtle, needed tactic, knowledge of human nature and the ability to manipulate the situation to his own advantage.  
Watch Ron on missions was like watching a big animal take down his prey.  
Methodical, quiet and with the smallest damage possible.  
Ron in his role as an Auror was like a shark moving effortless through the water.  
Beautiful but deadly.

"Yeah, but only you would manage to get yourself knocked up instead of killed." grumbled Harry purposefully tearing his thoughts way from the way he missed being on mission with Ron.  
"What's with them to send them long enough on a mission for you get pregnant while polyjuiced."  
 _They could have at least send me with you. I'd have kept you safe..._ he doesn't add it, but when he looks up he's sure Ron knows what he's thinking.  
Ron shrugged and his eyes were big and glittering with a quiet apology, that Harry didn't think he deserved.  
"You know I like children, Harry. I wouldn't stop a pregnancy, if I could help it."

The following morning he had a long, stern talk with Robards about sending Ron off to missions that could get him into a situation like this.  
It turned out that the plan had never been this way.  
Ron had broken the contact with the headquarter and had continued the hunt alone, obviously knowing that his actions would have brought trouble to the Department if he'd worked in their name.  
It had been brilliant, stupid Ron's decision and his will to sacrifice himself for the job, that had gotten him into this state.  
Harry let his boss know that if he didn't want to feel the Chosen One's wreath in person, he'd better keep him informed about Ron's work and if he'd send Ron on a mission, he better send Harry with him.  
He didn't care if Robards thought it was strategically a good idea.  
The man either would go with it, or Harry would find a political way to get him out of his office and assassinate him socially.  
When Harry left the head's office he found Ron on desk duty.  
Very bored and very pregnant.  
It hit him then that Ron was having girl bits now.  
He didn't know why he didn't like that thought.

After that realisation hit him.  
Every time he looked at Ginny he felt reminded on the pure monstrosity that seemed to be a female Ron.  
While he still figured out why he had such a hard time accepting that, he surely wasn't the only one, since John broke up with Ron a few weeks later.  
He heard Ginny and Ron talk about it when he came back then evening.  
John had broken up with Ron because he couldn't love him when he was biological female.  
Harry had been rarely so angry.  
John had the chance, the privilege to call Ron his partner.  
To touch him, kiss him and do things to him that no one else was allowed (well... outside of the job) this bastard didn't appreciate it and left him when Ron was in such a complicated...thi...ng going on!?  
The thought of Ron, beautiful, strong, tall, -at-all Ron, with girl parts, made him feel positively sick...as much as he hated John for leaving Ron alone, he couldn't help but understand how confusing this was for him.  
Ginny was angry too.  
When Harry entered the kitchen, he find her rummaging violently in the kitchen drawer while Ron was cutting vegetables for dinner.  
He looked a bit upset.  
"You okay?" he felt him say, the voice thick with uncertainty.  
He didn't know how to deal with a girl-Ron.  
Ron nodded, but his smile was a bit glum.

It was the first time that Harry deliberately avoided being in Ron's presence.  
Ron was so visiting their home so often that Harry found himself fleeing from there more and more often and he took any possibility to stay on missions to keep him away from Ron during the day and see Ron looking more and more pregnant and weirdly womanly every week.  
It was wrong.  
Just painfully wrong.

It was somewhere at the end of Ginny's and Ron's pregnancy and Harry been home in over a week, since a mission had kept him in Slovakia.  
When he entered the office it was way too late already and Harry felt like falling asleep on the stop.  
He needed to get the report on the way.  
Ron is there.  
It's in the middle of the night and Ron is there being very pregnant, very angry and scanning his body for the little wounds and scratches he got on the hunt.  
It feels so surreal and Ron looks why too much like his mum right now, he wants his Ron back.  
The one he can fight with and touch without being confused by weird lumps at his body.  
They do fight though.  
Harry is so angry, so confused and hurt...and so fucking jealous at the same time.  
He didn't even dared to notice himself, until he heard himself say it.  
"I hate this." muttered Harry miserable and waved towards the well-rounded middle of his friend.  
"I can't even hit you or get drunk with you properly to get my fix of 'Ron'. It's not like I ever had the chance to say 'yes'. Even when I broke up with Ginny back then when you told me, you'd never start a relationship with me. You're too fucking loyal to start something with the ex of your sister!"  
Harry buried his face in his hands.  
"You give this bloody baby face John years of your life! You let even a bloody criminal have you for a stupid case, but I'll never...I was never allowed...never..."  
The one he wanted to be with, the one he could never have, was Ron.  
He loved Ginny, but the one needed and wanted, was Ron.  
The reason why he'd felt like he was suffocated every time when he and Ginny started to have more than friendly body contact, was because the only one he wanted this kind of closeness with, was Ron.  
The reason why he had such a hard time accepting Ron's momentary girl parts, was that the one he fell in love with was Ron as boy and later as a man.

"You're probably right." Ron muttered still rubbing his belly, that felt so bloody out of place.  
"It's too late, Harry. Perhaps there was never a chance. There was never the right moment..."  
Harry tried to ignore how sad the grin on his friend's face was.  
"It's not your fault, Harry."  
Harry reached out with his hand and Ron pulled him clumsily on his feet.  
"We're both pants at talking about stuff." grunted the redhead and ruffled Harry already dishevelled hair.

"We're still partners, aren't we?"  
Ron nodded.  
"If you're back in your own body, we'll get drunk?"  
Ron grinned.  
"We can even get in a fist fight if it makes you that happy, Harry."  
Harry felt himself smile in relief, even though he didn't feel like smiling at all.  
This was his "game over".  
He should stop being a selfish, stubborn git and accept it.  
It was just that he couldn't.

Ron apparated away shortly after, leaving Harry alone with a drowning feeling of defeat and report that needed to be written.  
Afterwards he went home, had a look in the rooms of his sons to see if they were okay and then lie down beside Ginny, who was already fast asleep.  
He felt like he was living the life if a person that wasn't himself.

Ginny shook him roughly few hours later. Her hair was standing in every direction and she looked a little big panicky to say the least.  
She mumbled something about "Ron" and "water broke", "stay with the kids" before she ran to the floo as fast as she could with her pregnant form and was gone before Harry was awake enough to process what she said.  
He threw a look out of the window.  
It was still dark outside.  
Al had woken up and he toddled through the door, eyes small from sleeping and a shivering underlip...he seemed scared, startled by the noise so early in the morning, but he relaxed when he saw Harry and his tiny face brightened and with a delighted cry he flew in his father's arms.  
"Good morning, little Potter!" Harry laughed nuzzling the wiry black hair with his nose.  
He'd missed him.  
Harry settled back against the head of his bed and the little boy leaned against his chest.

It was then, while the sun slowly raised over the roofs of their neighbourhood and Al was dozing off in his arms, that had a terrible thought.  
What if it was his fault that Ron was several weeks too early for the birth.  
And even if it wasn't a result of their fight last night and Ron being agitated by it...what if something went wrong?  
It's not like it was natural for a guy to be pregnant to begin with, how natural could a guy giving birth be.  
While it felt fine to leave Ginny in the capable hands of Mrs. Weasley, the Healer and Ron, it was something entirely different when it came to Ron.  
The need to be with his best mate when he was in pain was like almost painful.  
He couldn't though...he needed to be a good dad today.  
Settling al down in the big family bed, he made his way to owl cage in the living room.

Philomena, Ginny's small barn owl hooted friendly as a greeting, when Harry tied a little letter at her talon to inform work that he and Ron couldn't make it because Ron was in the very process of becoming a parent and Harry needed to take care of his own offspring.  
He threw out the bird of the window and watched her silently glide through the morning sky until he lost sight of her.  
When he turned around, he saw James drawing black pattern on the fast of his younger brother with a permanent marker.  
"Boy." he said and hoped that he sounded at least a little bit strict and not like he thought it was funny that a small toddler as Al was sporting a giant black moustache.  
"i can see you."  
with this he took the marker from the boy's hand.  
"Stop being a git from time to time, Jamie-kins." he laughed while removing the colour...after he took a photo of course.  
He was just really rubbish at this parenting thing.  
Jamie was happy that he was back though.  
He was now four but still scrawny as ever and with a very prominent nose, that reminded Harry a lot of the Weasley twins and Percy.  
His dark mischievous eyes stood out like deep holes in his pale freckles face, giving him an impish expression that very rarely left his face.  
Following Harry to the kitchen the boy told him about his cousins and friends in the neighbourhood and Harry had almost finished setting up the breakfast table, before Jamie asked where his mother was.  
"She went to help Uncle Ron. He's having his babies."  
the face of the boy became uncharacteristically soft and his worried expression made him look like a very small and and very dark haired version of Ron.  
"Do you think he'll be ok?" he asked stopping to swing his legs for a moment.  
"Your Uncle did a lot more scary things than giving birth to your little cousins." he said as much to calm down himself as his son.

A few hours later he couldn't wait anymore.  
After pacing through the apartment for a few hours and trying hard not to agitate the boys, who're playing surprisingly peaceful either with their toys, he gave up.  
The boys behind him on the living room he flooed the Burrow.  
When he poked his head through the fireplace the for thing he saw was Charlie Weasley having a bottle in his hands and feeding a baby that was hidden by pale blue blanket.  
"How's Ron?" Harry blurted out before even greeting, making the second oldest Weasley jump a little.  
"Good morning to you too, Harry." he grunted.  
He looked exhausted, his face was grey and the lines around his forehead and mouth were deeper than usually.  
"Him and Ginny are asleep upstairs. Not the easiest birth, but we managed." he muttered looking fondly at the tiny bundle in his muscular arms.  
"Can I come over with the kids or do you think it's too much..." Harry flt like he was intruding.  
This was Weasley family business and no matter how close he was, he'd never feel like he deserved calling this great people his family.  
Charlie shrugged.  
"Mom! Bill!" he hollered to the kitchen, as if he wouldn't dare to make such a decision without asking a parent or at least his older brother.  
None of them came in the living room though.  
The one entering was Percy, one of his wiry arms put casually around a second bundle (this time with a pale yellow blanket with a cross-stitched "G" on it).  
"Harry's asking if he and the boys should come over." Charlie nodded with his head toward the fireplace and Percy followed the gesture and looked at Harry's head in the flames.  
"Stupid question... Bill brought all of his kids too and Audrey will come over with the girls when they're finished. Better the children learn sooner than later, that there's no way to escape the crowd."  
Percy shrugged and Harry took that as a "yes".

He pulled his head back, gathered both of his sons in his left arm and threw a hand-full of floo powder with the right hand in the flames.  
A loud "Burrow" later he was standing in the cosy living room of the Weasley' main house.  
The rag rug, that usually was lying there was gone and it seemed like someone cleaned the room very thoroughly.  
The sun was shining through the open windows and painted golden patterns on the furbished wooden floor.

The boys wriggling out of his arms hurrying to both sides of Percy and Charlie, who kneeled down so the children could look at the babies.  
Both were even smaller than Jamie had been.  
Disturbingly tiny frail the yellow-blanket baby even more than the blue-blanket baby.  
Both had fluffy hair that stood around their head like a halo, yellow had brown hair that reminded so much on Hermione that Harry started to get a little bit teary and the other one was a red head.  
"What are their names." Harry heard himself say hoarsely.  
Even if he still had problem accepting they were conceived... you couldn't hate something innocent like a baby.  
"We don't know..." said Bill behind him, looking similar tired as his younger brothers.  
"Ron fell asleep before telling us."  
Harry nodded, watching Charlie prompt his eldest to sit down on the couch so the tiny blue-blanket baby could be be carefully placed in Jamie's arms.  
He'd never seen this child so proud and careful.  
"This is the girl." explained Charlie sitting close enough to support the boy if he shouldn't be able to hold the baby.  
"And Percy has her little brother."  
Harry felt terrible out of place.

"I'll go look after Ron and Ginny." he muttered, leaving his sons in the capable hands of his brothers-in-law and fled into the quietness of the upper floor.  
When he opened the door he saw Ron and Ginny really were both asleep.  
Ginny's head was resting on Ron shoulder and she looked much more happy than she'd ever had when she was sleeping beside Harry.  
Harry realised, that with his antics he hadn't only put his own marriage and the innocence of his friendship with Ron at risk...he had risked one most important relationships that Ginny and Ron had...being siblings, being loyal to each other, caring for each other... that was something Ginny and Ron always relied so much on.  
Harry had almost damaged one if the most precious things in his life...seeing the Weasley family happy and safe.

Looking at Ginny's relaxed face he felt a sad smile ghost over his face.  
It wasn't that he didn't love Ginny...it was just that his love for Ginny was not the right way to love her.  
What he wanted with Ginny...wasn't a marriage.  
All this time he was just fucking envious of Ron, for this safety...that his siblings, while bickering a lot with him, would always stay by his side.  
What he wanted was this exceptional sibling bond that Ginny and Ron had.  
He'd been so stupid.

It would probably have been better to just do down stairs, but he could let himself leave the room.  
For she just stood there watching the sun wander higher and let the siblings in the bed before him glow like figures of a fairy tale book he'd read as a child.  
When Ron started to move more, how he always did shortly before waking up, Harry instinctively change into his animagus form and hid behind a big stack of Martin Miggs comics.  
He sat there and watches out of tiny dark eyes how Ron wriggled around and rummaging under the blankets, his face slightly pink and Ginny still asleep next to him, that he shook her awake.  
"Ginny!" he beamed.  
"I've got a prick!"  
His sister looked at him in confusion, but then she finally understood and nuzzled her face into the crook of his neck happily.  
"I've got my brother back." she chuckled.  
The siblings giggled like grade school children and hugged and Ron looked so at home on his body that he looked more beautiful than ever.  
Harry felt guilty to watch them...this was so private, so close to their heart...  
when Ron and Ginny went downstairs he stayed a few more minutes, hidden between old comics and try to calm down the bubbling joy in him that Ron was his Ron again.  
No weird girl bits and disturbing roundness, no Ron all awkward in his own body...just Ron being Ron again.

When he made his way down stairs, the Weasley family stands around the living room. Ron is sitting on the sofa hunching over the babies in his arms. Gently smelling at the round, heads full of fuzzy curls. They tiny enough that they could fit each in just one of his giant hands.  
Jamie is almost melting in Ron's side in the attempt close to the babies. Harry had never seen him so exciting about seeing another human.  
Bill pushes a glass of sparkling wine in Harry's hands but he to distracted with watching and feeling so bloody grateful for being allowed to be part of this family.  
Ron looks up to say something but the words get lost when he noticed Harry the wrinkles curl around his eyes and his face is glowing in happiness.  
And Harry doesn't even think before moving across the room and behind the couch to lean of Ron's shoulder to look at the tiny little humans in Ron arms and have an excuse to smell...Ron smelled like himself again.  
Harry grinned.  
"good job, mate." he heard himself say and and felt Ron learn against him and saw the gently, happy smile on Ron's face and for a moment he didn't care that the whole Weasley family, including his own wife, saw him being _not normal_...because there was no way normal best mates would look at each other like that.  
Like the other one was the only one that mattered.

"All right, boys and ladies!" boomed George's voices through the room bringing their attention back to their surroundings.  
Harry straightened himself and avoided Ginny's eyes.  
"A toast!" cheered George and lifted his glass the other arm thrown around Chris' hips.  
"To my baby brother! The gayest man that ever became a father!"  
There was a lot of laughing and toasting to honour the newborn Weasleys and Harry looked down on Ron, the babies and Al and Jamie that sat close to Ron on both side with glasses of sweet soda in their hands and he asked himself how a simple bloke like him deserved so much luck.


End file.
